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LIBRARY OF THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 





\ 
PRINCETON, N. J. 


PRESENTED BY 


The Author. 





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COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 





By A. Z. CONRAD, D.D. 


Jesus Christ at the 
Crossroads 


““A Challenge uttered with prophetic 
vision and fearless zeal.’’—Sunday School 
Times. 


“Dr. Conrad gives a clear and con- 
vincing reason for his faith.” —Christian 
Endeavor W orld. 


“Goes through the controversy like 
the Gulf Stream through the Atlantic.” 
—Neil McPherson, D.D. (Springfield). 


‘“‘We thank God for this stentorian 
voice from Park St. Church.’’—Leander 
S. Keyser, D.D., in the Bible Champion. 


“A trenchant, outspoken defense of 
the fully inspired Gospel.’’—Religious 
Telescope. 


*“‘Will do much to settle the faith of 
one disturbed by recent discussion.— 
Biblical Recorder. 


CLOTH $1.25 





Comrades of the 
Carpenter 


CRAIN OF PRINCES 
~) 






gee hel 
A. Z."CONRAD, Ph.D., D.D. 


Pastor Park Street Congregational Church, 
Boston, Mass. 


New York CuHiIcaGo 


Fleming H. Revell Company 


Lonpon : AND EpINBURGH 


Copyright, Mcmxxv1, by 
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY 


New York: 158 Fifth Avenue 
Chicago: 17 North Wabash Ave. 
London: 21 Paternoster Square 
Edinburgh: 99 George Street 


To Comrades of the Carpenter, and especially to 
my Fellow Comrades in the Ministry of 
The Word, this book is affection- - 
ately inscribed 


Ke 


AM ke 
iat \ 


be be ee 
f : \ OF, 
a? aT :' 4 


eats 
Oded 56 


sie, 
Be 
Ay 





FOREWORD 


_ REMOTENESS diminishes a sense of reality. God is 
the sum of all reality. Only proximity can make God 
real to the thought, and an available, contributive en- 
ergy. To the little child God is both near and real. To 
the adult He is likely to be pushed farther and farther 
away, because of our absorption in material interests. 
Then He becomes unreal, hazy, nebulous, unmeaning, 
and by and by He is lost. Then prayer ceases, faith 
gives place to doubt, and the atheistic drift is strong. 
Is not a sense of fellowship with God a great need of 
today? We might well sing, “ Nearer, my God, to 
me.’ How can this become a fact of personal experi- 
ence save through the Great Comrade, Jesus Christ? 

Jesus Christ is the one supreme colossal figure 
that looms up on the horizon of the thinking world, 
dwarfing every other personality in contrast. He is 
the adorable, inescapable, incomparable, transcendant 
Personality of time and eternity. For three thousand 
years He has been the controlling, commanding, out- 
standing and baffling personality, holding the center 
of the stage amid protest, violent denunciation, ridi- 
cule, contempt, persecution and denial. One thousand 
years, as the One who was to come, and two thousand 
years as a historic reality. 

Nearly two thousand years ago The Carpenter of 


7 


8 FOREWORD 


Nazareth, credentialed by Almighty God at the Jordan 
River, stepped out before the world as a Teacher, with 
supernatural power and with a program for the world’s 
Redemption. He made such claims as would have 
wrecked Him had they not been true. A weaponless 
workman, He declared He would found a Kingdom 
worldwide and endless. He was opposed by wealth, 
scholarship and both political and ecclesiastical govern- 
ments. He came to make God the realest fact in the 
universe. He arrested the attention of the multitudes 
and broke their hearts by His loving sympathy. 

He went voluntarily to Calvary, to the tomb, and 
then shattered His way out of the rock-hewn sepulcher, 
vindicating every claim He had made, and killed death 
itself. After nineteen hundred years He is still the 
one commanding fact among men. 

Today Comradeship with the Carpenter produces the 
most heroic living, doing and dying, the deepest think- 
ing and the largest love. He is the soul of all philan- 
thropy.and the heart of all chivalry. His hands are 
still outstretched to the belated and the forgotten. He 
is still saying: “I will take the hindermost.” He does 
it, and places them in the front rank of achieving men 
and women. He does this by Comradeship. This and 
this alone will bring man into vital contact with God. 

The crime wave today appalls men. Courts and con- 
stabulary seem helpless to cope with it. A vision of 
God as the Great Reality, with which all men will have 
to reckon, is the only thing that can bring about normal 
conditions. A new sense of duty and a new vision of | 
judgment to come must arouse and awaken the forces 


FOREWORD 9 


that can stay back the demonized devotees of lust and 
the multitude lost in the passion for pleasure. We 
must get closer to God, by Comradeship with the Son 
of God. Is it not just possible we who are uncompro- 
mising evangelicals have made God distant by our fail- 
ure to emphasize His human side? Ought we not to 
stress the humanity of Jesus, so as to make Him seem 
more really one with us, and thus get closer to God? 
In “Comrades of the Carpenter” the controlling 
thought has been nearness to God. In the Carpenter 
we find a bond that is unbreakable. The Nazareth 
workshop stands for a Divine and human sympathy 
with the burdens, the toils and the tears of humanity. 

We have desired to relate the sayings of the Car- 
penter to the hopes, fears, purposes and problems of 
today. If those who may read this message are helped 
to see, hear and feel the nearness and the availableness 
of God a little more perfectly, it will have accomplished 
its purpose. “ This is Life Eternal, to know God and 
Jesus Christ whom He hath sent.” 

AL Gs 


Boston, Mass. 





XII. 
XII. 


CONTENTS 


CoMRADESHIP WITH THE CARPENTER. .  . 13 


CHANGING LIFE’s INCLINE FROM Down ‘to 


TT a ecole gas Neca Aa TOR Mt SUE Es MBE Der ME AR 
WatTER, WINE AND A WEDDING . . .. . 37 
Pe BATTOR FORMEREAD | 10) 90 e iy Ol! wee aS 
IN THE FIELDS AND AMONG THE LILIES WITH 

Re CARPENTERS 1 10 Nui Mitiicbe il Duin) Rema nico ny (ey 
beri [rr nets COURS TY bile AG Tn viny Salah cay bean) GO 
ERE SETA TS AN EGISTR Ya a Malina ae et San SU) 
PEE LIGHT OF THE WORLD} di co. we ies AD 
THE CARPENTER, THE GoopD SHEPHERD .. 103 
THE CoMPULSIONS OF REDEMPTIVE Love. . 113 


CIVILIZING, SOCIALIZING, CHRISTIANIZING 
PEERED Me eu eae een aa Met ae ELAS 


THUNDER, AN ANGEL OR THE VOICE OF Gop? . 138 


MouNTAIN CLIMBING WITH THE CARPENTER. 148 


XIV. A Court ScENE WITH THE CARPENTER- 


XV. 


So NS CORD ei aE aa Sa ROHR NR OUEN M6 Fs 


In THE SHADOWS WITH THE CARPENTER. . 175 


11 





I 
COMRADESHIP WITH THE CARPENTER 


THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “ Henceforth I call you 
not servants ... but I have called you friends” (Comrades). — 
Joun 15:15, 


IsoLATION is desolation. Seclusion is exclusion. A 
life is largely measured by its contacts. A life with 
few contacts is a life with few contracts but many piti- 
ful contractions. Like the waters of a lake, inflow and 
outflow are essential to sweetness. Aloneness is little- 
ness. A hermit life is only half a life. Fellowship 
multiplies power. ‘One shall chase a thousand, and 
two shall put ten thousand to flight.” 

If comradeship is important, the character of com- 
rades is vitally significant. Walk with kings, and roy- 
alty is yours. Walk with knaves, and rascality will 
leave its finger-prints. Tell me who your companions 
are, and I will tell you what you are. Soul fusion and 
interfusion is one of the most important facts of life. 
Friendship and fellowship change the whole trend of 
human experience. Delights are doubled, and difh- 
culties are divided, by sweet, sane associations. The 
chemistry of the soil reveals itself in flower and fruit. 
The quality of your friendships will color your thought 
and mark your deed. Misplaced confidences bring de- 
feat, discouragement and despair. Comrades whose 

13 


14 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


character is exalted, immeasurably enrich life. David 
was greater because of his fellowship with Jonathan. 
Paul was the more powerful because of the friendship 
of Barnabas. Luther was blessed by the sanguine and 
ardent character of Philip Melanchthon. Calvin’s tre- 
mendous intellectual energy was the more effective 
through his associates. Personalities are complemental 
and supplemental. When the disciples were commis- 
sioned and sent forth, they went in couples, When the 
Seventy undertook an evangelistic campaign each man 
had his companion. Self-sufficiency invariably proves 
to be self-inefficiency. What might Burns have become 
had his Highland Mary lived! Moody was tremen- 
dously helped by Sankey. Wilbur Chapman could 
never have carried on his great campaigns for Christ 
with the success ‘he did, but for companionship with the 
enthusiastic, consecrated Alexander. 

If all this be true of human comradeships, what shall 
we say of Fellowship with God? How immeasurably 
increased and enlarged, broadened and deepened is a 
life which enjoys fellowship with the Infinite! What 
the French call comaraderie is simply fellowship made 
dynamic. 

A distant Deity dismisses no doubts, dissolves no 
difficulties. Right here we find the secret of the failure 
of Christianity to measure up to its possibilities. God 
has been pushed farther and farther away, until He 
is dismissed altogether, by many. ‘The present-day 
tendency is to ignore God as a factor in everyday life. 
How can man fellowship with God? That was God’s 
problem and not man’s. He solved it. How? Com- 


COMRADESHIP WITH THE CARPENTER 15 


radeship with the Carpenter. Fellowship with God is 
not a vagary, it is vital; it is not a dream, it is a de- 
- terminer of destiny. Right now the greatest need of 
professedly Christian people is a new sense of the ap- 
proachableness of God. Remoteness has dimmed our 
vision of Him. Prayer is effectualized through prox- 
-imity. If God cannot be made contactual with us, then 
all thoughts of Him are useless. Only a God with 
whom we can associate is able to communicate to us 
either His will or His power. 

God is sovereign. Hold that as a precious and im- 
mensely valuable article of faith. God is overawing in 
the majesty of His being. God is commanding in His 
Goodness and sublime in His Justice. In all of His 
attributes the Eternal God is overwhelmingly great. 

The amazing fact about the omnipotent, omniscient, 
omnipresent God is Comradeship with man. He is not 
distant. He is not a far-away disinterested Deity. 
Heartfulness, hope, happiness, and Heaven are all em- 
_ braced in the glorious fact that God is available through 
fellowship. This is what gives life its relish and its 
zest. Human empowerment is absolutely conditioned 
upon closeness to God. 

This is the order of human history: God—Cre- 
ation—Man—Communion — Sin — Separation — De- 
generation—Covenant—Communication— Redemption 
—Regeneration. Time passed. Egypt rose, fell, was but 
a memory. Babylon flamed forth, died, was forgotten. 
Ephesus, resplendent and then a ruin. Greece, queen of 
the earth but afterward a vassal nation. Rome, imperial 
and imperious. Judaism, advancing, declining and ap- 


16 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


_parently dying. Idolatry, selfishness, sordidness, sick- 
ness, sorrow, sin. Then came the Carpenter! Through 
_ Him, God opened the way to Comradeship with man. 

In the Carpenter of Nazareth, God became man’s 
close friend and holy companion. You can imagine the 
soliloquy of the Trinity: ‘‘ Man whom we created in 
our own image has marred the image and broken the 
bond of fellowship. He does not know Us. He does 
not love Us. He will never know Us until We unveil 
Our love for him. He has the marvels of our handi- 
work before him in nature, but does not find Us. The 
starry heavens declare Our wisdom but do not proclaim 
Our affection. Man hears the voice of thunder, the 
roar of the ocean, but does not find in them the music 
of Divine love. Let us go to him embodied in form 
like his own. Let Us walk with him, talk with him, 
sorrow with him, suffer with him, then die for him. 

“Then he will understand. Then he will discover 
who and what and where God is. If We weep with 
him, work with him, think with him, feel with him, 
become a Comrade to him, then he will become a new 
creature, and the longing of Our Own heart for fel- 
lowship will be satisfied.” 

Then came the Carpenter! A sweet maiden of Naza- 
reth became the vehicle through whom God accom- 
plished His historic entry into the world. The mystic 
beauty of the Incarnation is entrancing. How natural! 
How like God! How human! How Divine! With a 
finesse and a directness dismissing all thought of im- 
posture the sweet story of the birth and growth of 
Jesus is told in the Gospel narrative. “ God manifest 


COMRADESHIP WITH THE CARPENTER 17 


in the flesh!” Preparing for Comradeship with man! 
Thus and thus only could He make us realize that He 
knows childhood in all its tenderness; thus and thus 
only could we appreciate His perfect acquaintance with 
the struggles, the impulses, the aspirations of youth. 
How else could God have come into the activities of 
men when they are at the full noontide of life, so that 
the business man might know that there are no bur- 
dens he has to bear, no reverses he has to meet, with 
which the Great Companion is not familiar? How 
gracious and how good this coming of the Sovereign 
Lord to make possible His own self-impartation to 
man! When a deep realization of the fact that God is 
in His world possesses the human heart, everything in 
life changes. The outlook is different. A sense of 
limitless ability seems to stir within the soul. Today 
the emphasis has been placed on self-development, self- 
dependence, self-exertion, as the whole need of man in 
his life achievements. Such doctrine will never make 
for the mightiest character. As well urge the man at 
the lathe, with steel to be made into accurately fash- 
ioned cylinders, to depend on his own muscle and not 
upon the great dynamo which has been brought within 
reach of his hand and into which he can gear himself 
by the shifting of a lever. How stupid he would be not 
to avail himself of the power of a thousand men and 
thus become himself a thousand instead of one. ‘That 
would be sanity applied. Ignoring God is far greater 
folly than ignoring mechanical aids in our material 
achievements. Why not avail ourselves of Omnipo- 
tence in performing the herculean task of constructing 


18 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


character? Why not attach ourselves to Omniscience 
and be wise? Contact with God is fundamentally im- 
portant. It has become a reality with the Comrades of 
the Carpenter. It was the Incarnation that eliminated 
the seeming distance between God and man. 

God thus consecrated Comaraderie forever. He 
made true friendship a fountain of joy. 

One cannot conceive of the workshop of Joseph as 
cheerless or dreary. Good-will develops good-cheer. 
Companionship at high levels, gives life radiancy. Dis- 
parity of age could not prevent exhilarant fellowship. 
Of all men, Joseph was the one person blessed by asso- 
ciation with Jesus in the exuberance of His youth. 
The young apprentice had a sympathetic teacher. 
From childhood He knew the meaning of weariness 
from work. He was interested, intelligent, energetic. 
Joseph, as no other: save his young wife, held the 
mystic secret of the Incarnation. During the period 
of the unfolding of the life of the Divine Child, a bond 
unbreakable, through comradeship, must have united 
the lives of Joseph, Mary and Jesus. It was a three- 
fold cord which is not quickly broken. What conver- 
sations must have been theirs! What surprises! How 
often the elder of the twain stopped the saw, the plane 
or the hammer, startled by some unexpected expression 
_ of other-world-wisdom from the lips of the boy blos- 
soming into manhood. The growing consciousness of 
His mission would inevitably express itself in extraor- 
dinary utterance. Wisdom astounding and inspiring 
would quicken the heart-beat of Joseph, and confirm 
his faith in the reality of the supernaturalness of the 


COMRADESHIP WITH THE CARPENTER 19 


source of the life of his foster son and the purity and 
sweetness of his beloved Mary. How glad he was that 
he had heeded the counsel of the mysterious messenger 
who assured him of the absolute honor of her whom, 
not strangely, he had doubted when unwedded mother- 
hood confronted her. More and more now, he knew. 
To the holy mother, the young Carpenter became more 
a comrade than a son. How well she knew that the 
mystery of His birth carried with it a two-world mean- 
ing! Her love ripened into reverence. 

Daily she would seek the shop of Joseph, that she 
might be near enough to hear the conversations and 
enjoy the comradeship which so enriched the lives of 
Joseph and herself. | 

The simple requirements of the carpenter’s craft of 
that day were early mastered by the ardent Apprentice. 
The workshop was for years a school-room as well. 
Copies of the writings of the patriarchs, prophets and 
poets of Israel were eagerly sought and became the 
textbooks thoughtfully studied by Jesus. The hidden 
meaning of the age-long promises found their fullest 
exposition from the lips of Him who had come as the 
fulfillment of the hopes of the centuries. 

Years passed. The day came when Joseph laid aside 
the tools of his trade, bade farewell to the beloved 
mother and her son, and fell asleep. The comradeship 
between Jesus and His mother grew strangely sacred 
and inexpressibly sweet. Here, motherhood and son- 
ship found their highest and holiest expression. From 
the very moment of the Incarnation, motherhood took 
on a sacredness it had never before possessed. Nothing 


20 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER ~ 


so sanctifies motherhood today as the fact that God 
chose motherhood as the method of His fullest mani- 
festation of Himself to humanity. 

The exalted character of the Carpenter had a twofold 
influence upon his fellow townsmen. To the baser 
sort this unexampled purity of life was a constant re- 
buke, and awakened a secret antagonism. To the lovers 
of truth and righteousness Jesus was sought for coun- 
sel and comradeship. For ten years after He had 
reached the age of twenty He was the Carpenter of 
Nazareth. This explains why later on, when an un- 
usual expression of wisdom and power amazed the 
people, they said: “Is not this the Carpenter?” The 
Nazareth shop was the center of influence. Here came 
those who coveted fellowship with soul-nobleness and 
who yearned for a fuller knowledge of things Divine. 

Three decades had almost passed since the angels at 
Bethlehem announced to wondering shepherds: “ Unto 
you is born this day in the City of David a Saviour.” 
Years had now passed since Jesus in the Temple had 
uttered the significant word: “ Wist ye not that I must 
be about my Father’s business?” The hour was 
striking for the great venture. 

For four hundred years no voice of a great prophet 
had been heard. The silence now was broken. John 
the Baptist, cousin of Jesus, spoke first. From the 
desert there came a cry, resonant with righteousness 
and poignant with purpose, “ Repent.” The echo of it 
reached Galilee. How often Jesus had been in com- 
munication and communion with His cousin John is © 
not recorded. Some times, without doubt. The Car- 


COMRADESHIP WITH THE CARPENTER 21 


penter heard the voice in the wilderness. It was the 
signal for redemptive action. He needed no repen- 
tance. He could say, as none other who has ever lived 
could say: “I do always the things that please Him.” 
But a wider comradeship must now be His. He was 
born that God might walk with men. To John He 
went, that He might be publicly credentialed. <A visible 
and audible Divine manifestation declared the Divine- 
ness of His Person and His mission: ‘“‘ This is my 
beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” Once and 
for all He was ordained for His Redemptive task. Son 
of man, Son of God. Here we have the secret of 
Comradeship between God and man. | 

After ordination what next? Comradeship—on a 
new and higher basis, with human personalities. An- 
drew, then Peter, then Philip, then Nathanael, then 
John, James and others of the Twelve. The circle 
widened. Comradeship with the Carpenter trans- 
formed crude, unlettered fishermen, craftsmen, pub- 
licans, centurions, merchants into educated, cultivated, 
influential, earnest leaders, advocates and even martyrs. 
It cast a sacred spell over their lives ennobling and 
empowering. These apostles and disciples walked with 
Him, talked with Him, worked with Him, prayed with 
Him, until, through Comradeship, they became like 
Him. What a privilege to have seen Him, to have 
heard Him, to have shared with Him deprivations, 
growingly to have comprehended the marvelousness of 
His matchless life and the glory of His sacrificial love! 
They saw His sympathy and His sorrow. They stood 
astounded at His wisdom and His power. They saw 


22 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


Him raise the dead, heal the sick, cleanse lepers and 
communicate Himself to pleading human hearts. They 
beheld Him under persecution. Some of them saw His 
arrest and later saw Him go to His Cross. The Com- 
radeship, seemingly broken by death, was gloriously but 
blessedly resumed, when He fulfilled His own prophecy 
and came forth from the tomb. Comradeship then re- 
created them. They became the witnesses who fanned 
the spark of faith into a flame of devotion. They con- 
stituted the first Church. They were the pillars in the 
new Temple of God. 

What is Comradeship with the Carpenter today? 
The power of the Carpenter to grip and hold the hearts 
of men has not lessened one iota with the passing cen- 
turies. The same ennobling and exalting influence is 
exerted on the lives of those who make a Comrade of 
the Carpenter today, as when He walked with His dis- 
ciples in Galilee and Judea. The Exalted Christ wants 
Comrades. He said: “ Henceforth I call you not ser- 
vants, but I have called you friends.” The highest of 
all human privileges is the privilege of fellowship, 
Comradeship with God through Comradeship with the 
Carpenter. It is this close association and communion 
that will dissolve all doubts regarding His Saviour- 
hood. We talk about Him, but do we talk with Him 
and to Him as we should. A visualized Christ is an 
available Christ. Contact with Jesus today is as neces- 
sary as when His visible touch communicated health to 
the sick, sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf and life 
to the dead, during His sojourn in Galilee and Judea, © 
twenty centuries ago. 


COMRADESHIP WITH THE CARPENTER 23 


This is the Comradeship Jesus promised when He 
said: “Lo, I am with you alway.” Men become in- 
credulous, hesitant, doubtful regarding the Incarna- 
tion, the Resurrection, and that marvelous miracle, Re- 
generation, when they cease to enjoy the Comrade- 
ship of the Carpenter-Christ. 

What wonder that people cease to find any thrilling 
joy in Christian life and service when the Great Friend 
and Comrade is no longer thought of as such, but 
vaguely conceived of as in the distant Glory, inter- 
ested perhaps, but in no definite way a participant in 
the affairs of life here and now! The nearness of the 
Master needs new emphasis right now. The slogan, 
“Get right with God,” is good. Another equally im- 
portant is “ Get close to God.” Immanuel—God with 
us—this is a soul-stirring thought. This is the soul- 
thrilling Evangel for this hour when so many are 
losing the idea of fellowship with a Personal God. 
Only Comradeship with the Carpenter will develop a 
sense of the Divine Presence indispensable to soul 
transformation and satisfaction. It is thus He will 
take you into His confidence and disclose the secret of 
a happy, progressive Christian life. 

Who best understands a little child—the anatomist, 
who will describe every part of the physical frame and 
discourse upon the function of each member of the 
body; the psychologist, who enters into the wonders of 
mental action and reaction; the philosopher, who coolly 
calculates the why and wherefore of human conduct; 
or the mother, whose maternal understanding and sym- 
pathy gives her an insight into the very mystery of life 


24 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


itself? Who best understands the Carpenter-Christ— 
the presumptive self-sufficient materialist who recog- 
nizes only what he can weigh and measure and who at 
the outset denies the possibility of anything beyond the 
visible and tangible, or he who has discovered the great 
secret of wisdom through Comradeship with the Car- 
penter of Nazareth, now exalted and enthroned, yet 
nearer than the nearest friend of earth? 

If you have doubts, tell the Comrade, and He will 
dissolve them. If you have grief, tell Him, and He 
will share it with you. Make the Carpenter your Com- 
rade, and the whole Gospel story becomes intelligible, 
believable and natural. ‘The Comrade in White ” was 
no myth, no illusion, no delusion. He was on the bat- 
tlefield. He is on every battlefield of life today. He is 
the Friend, Counsellor, and Comforter of His Com- 
rades. He will be Comrade to those who trust Him, 
love Him and obey Him. 

For them there is nothing He cannot and will not do. 


I] 


CHANGING LIFE’S INCLINE FROM DOWN 
LOU 


THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “ Follow me.” 
—JoHN 1: 43. 


WHEN you stop to think of it, it was marvelous. 
The fulfilment of every human obligation; the secret 
of all power, the realization of every high ideal—all 
told in two words! Who dare utter a word like 
that to earth’s millions? It was marvelous when 
you stop to think of it; if you do not think, then 
nothing is marvelous. Yesterday, shavings; today, sal- 
vation. The carpenter shop at Nazareth one day and 
the next, Divine ordination for world redemption! 
One day fashioning yokes, the next calling to Himself 
yoke-fellows. 

The claim to world leadership is a stupendous claim. 
The ordinary man who would proclaim it would be 
passed by as a poor deluded lunatic. Not so the Naza- 
rene. Credentialed, immediately He sought comrade- 
ship. It was all sublime. The baptism, the descent of 
the Spirit; the Voice—the Divine acclaim: “‘ Thou art 
my beloved son, in thee I am well pleased.” The sub- 
limity of it all is equaled only by its simplicity. We 
confuse and complicate Christianity. The Carpenter 
was definite, direct, brief, but comprehensive. He 


25 


26 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


offered no new philosophy of life. He did not talk of 
“ New thought.” He did not propose a new Constitu- 
tion. He did not present a royal octavo volume of in- 
structions and directions. He indicated that the whole 
requirement consisted in following Himself. To the 
query: ‘‘ What shall I do to find rest and peace,” He 
answered: “ Follow me.” “ How can I break with the 
things that destroy me?” “ Follow me.” “ How can 
I secure the favor of the Eternal God?” “Follow 
me.’ “‘ How can I bear burdens that are crushing me, 
meet disappointments that discourage me, rise above 
appetites that are consuming me?” “Follow me.” 
“Ts there nothing beyond this?”’ ‘‘ Nothing.” “ Are 
there not mystical features in Christianity which must 
be understood before I can be received into full dis- 
cipleship?”’ ‘None; follow me.” These two words 
tell the whole story of the ascending life. Christward 
movements are always upward, never downward. Fol- 
lowing the Carpenter means giving to life an upward 
direction. It changes life from down to up. That is 
the deep meaning of the Christian life. Simple? Yes, 
but tremendously exacting, after all. | 
The inauguration of new world movements is not 
only interesting but thrilling. The greatest movement 
in human history was being inaugurated when Jesus of 
Nazareth, having been baptized, turned to the men 
nearest Him and said: “ Follow me.” It was Ezekiel’s 
vision of the tiny stream flowing from beneath the altar 
and starting on its course of world irrigation. “ And 
everything shall live, whithersoever the river cometh.” 
At last it shall be broad, deep, ‘‘ waters to swim in, a 


INCLINE FROM DOWN TO UP 27 


river that could not be passed over.”’ “ Despise not the 
day of small things.” As Christianity began, so it has 
been continued. The Carpenter presented Himself as 
the solution of all of this world’s spiritual problems, the 
solvent of all of its ills, the victory in every battle. 


“Do you want truth?” “Follow me.” “Do you 
want power?” “Follow me.” “Do you want right- 
eousness?”’ “ Follow me.” 


The Carpenter proposed nothing less than world 
revolution through Comradeship with Himself. How 
audacious! But He did it. Can you think of anything 
more difficult than to establish a new religion? The 
great Positivist complained because people were so slow 
to take up with the religion of humanity. A shrewd 
observer said: “ Live a perfect life, work miracles, heal 
the sick and raise the dead, then go and be crucified, 
then rise from the dead; and you will not lack for fol- 
lowers.” Here we find a hint of what ‘“ Follow me” 
involved. It is no easy half-hearted drifting with the 
tide, without purpose and without effort. When the 
Carpenter said “Follow me,” it meant the “ Me” 
whose coming had been heralded by poets and prophets 
for a thousand years. The ‘“ Me” whose birth had 
been announced to the Nazareth Virgin. The “ Me” 
whose coming had been attended by angel choirs. The 
“Me” whose life had been untouched by a single sin. 
The “ Me” credentialed by God Almighty, at His bap- 
tism, as “ God’s only begotten Son.” The ‘ Me” who 
was later to speak as never man spake; live as never 
man lived, die as never man died, come forth from the 
tomb in complete mastery of death, ascend to the Glory 


28 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


which He had with the Father before the world was. 
“Follow me” did not mean following one who was 
born just as other men are born, unannounced and 
through natural generation. It did not mean following 
one whose life was limited and moulded by the con- 
ditions of the age in which he lived. It did not mean 
following one who was somewhat superior, yet entirely 
one of the human family, no more Divine than others. 
It meant following the Christ of the Gospels into a life 
of self-effacement, self-surrender to the will of the 
Eternal Father; following Him through cloud and 
storm and trial, to and through Calvary. Not all this 
was unfolded at the moment. The Divine Unveiling 
takes time. It was a gradual revealing that finally made 
the Comrades know the Christ. 

Watch the steps of inauguration of Comradeship 
with the Carpenter. We are standing on the water- 
shed of revelation. It is a moment weighted with two 
eternities, the one already past and the other just being 
born. The wilderness had been ringing with the word 
of the Baptist, “ Repent.” He had reached the cul- 
mination of his splendid and illustrious career. His 
star, long in the ascendant, was just about to pass into 
eclipse, or rather be lost in the glory of the greater light 
of the Sun of Righteousness. The water courses will 
now run in two directions, one toward the ocean of 
God’s love and the other moving toward the gleaming 
sands of time, to be for the moment swallowed up. 

Three days in succession the proclamation of the 
Great Arrival had been made in the mystic words: 
“ Behold the Lamb of God.” Out from the sea of 


INCLINE FROM DOWN TO UP 29 


eternity, God had landed on the shores of time, and 
was standing now among men, offering Himself as the 
sum of all Beatitude and the source of all Salvation. 
Right then and there began the movement that has 
filled the world with a new song of hope and has given 
to man the power that makes for victory. Right then 
began the teaching, the doing, the living and the loving, 
that was to awaken humanity from its death slumber, 
and its evil deeds, and by vivifying, and vitalizing, 
transform deserts to gardens of beauty. Here is one 
who will “ baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” 

How much hinges on an ordinary introduction! God 
Almighty was introducing Himself to the world, in the 
person of His Son. Is it possible to evaluate the mean- 
ing of those moments? What did it mean to untold 
myriads of men and women who have heard the Divine 
Voice and have followed? 

The two disciples heard Him speak and followed 
Jesus. Whom did they hear? ‘The voice of John the 
Baptist: “ Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away 
the sins of the world.” ‘This was exactly what the 
world had waited for, for generations. How glorious 
is a positive true testimony! It was this witness of 
John, heard by the two disciples of John, that led them 
to follow Jesus. Whom did they follow? A man? 
Yes. A prophet? Yes. An affable genial personality? 
Yes. The One who had baffled the doctors in the tem- 
ple while yet He was but a child? Yes. But was that 
all? By no means. No, they followed Him who was 
the embodiment of what John testified when he said: 
“Behold the Lamb of God.” They followed—the 


30 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


Lamb of God. ‘That is what it means to obey the 
command of the Carpenter, “ Follow me.” 

They followed a great doctrine, but a doctrine in- 
carnate. ‘They followed a living creed. To follow 
Jesus is vastly more than to follow a man, even though 
he be a superman, from whose lips flowed wisdom as 
sweet waters flow from a living fountain; whose words 
were as honey in the honeycomb. “ This is the Son of 
God,”’ was the testimony. They followed then “ the 
Lamb of God,’ the Saviour; “the Son of God” who 
had come to bring a lost world back to God. ‘That is 
what it means to “ follow me.”’ That is the true dis- 
cipleship, which has been for nearly two thousand years 
winning a world and building a kingdom. You are not 
following Jesus unless you are following the Jesus cre- 
dentialed by God at the Jordan, the world’s Redeemer 
and, by that token, the world’s Friend. 

That is a marvelous example presented in John the 
Baptist, who watched his followers leave him and at- 
tach themselves to the Carpenter without a pang of 
regret. ‘‘ He must increase but I must decrease.” He 
was willing to be forgotten, if only “the true light that 
lighteth every man that cometh into the world” should 
be followed. 

Jesus saw the two disciples, one of whom was 
Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, following. Inquiry is 
always answered, if it be sincere. “ Whom seek ye?” 
Had He met them before? More than likely. What 
He now wished to learn was their motive. There are 
thousands of professed followers of Jesus who have 
been prompted by the fact that it is respectable to be a 


INCLINE FROM DOWN TO UP 31 


Christian. There are others who desire to be in good 
company and find it advantageous to keep in touch with 
Christian people. Motive is everything. Why did you 
unite with the church? Thousands read the Bible who 
never find God. Curiosity, a desire to become better 
acquainted with the philosophy and the psychology of 
Christianity, has brought many people to an outward 
profession, who do not see in Jesus Christ “ the Lamb 
of God.”’ In response to the question of the Carpenter, 
we hear for the first time, as applied to Jesus, the word 
Master. 

How different from the arrogant self-sufficiency that 
repudiates the need of any master, and vainly supposes 
that every man carries in himself all he needs for both 
goodness and greatness. 

That one word is the line of demarcation between 
the two great classes, each of which claims a right to 
the name Christian. One class, recognizing the Car- 
penter as the Son of God, utters in seriousness and 
humility the word ‘“ Master” or “Teacher.” It is a 
confession of need. It is a declaration of readiness to 
learn of truth eternal from Him who alone can speak 
with authority of things Divine. The.other class re- 
sent the idea that Christ can lay claim to adoration and 
implicit obedience. A great character? Yes. One to 
be worshiped? No. The difference is great indeed. 
Jesus knew the one way to impress upon those who 
were purposing Comradeship with Him that He could 
not accept them as Comrades on any other basis than 
obedience, was to ask them, and call from them the 
truth regarding, their motive in following. “ What 


32 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


seek ye?’’ Men find what they look for. Some men 
find the beasts of the jungle in Africa, while others find 
missions and missionary work which is concerned, not 
with animals, but immortal souls. When you study the 
Bible what seek ye? Literature? Well, you will find it 
at its best. Ethics? ‘Then you will find the one and 
only true ethic. Salvation? You will not be disap- 
pointed. Something to criticize or texts you can quote 
to support some fancied mistake of Moses? You will 
find that, too. You find what you seek in men and 
women about you. It is preeminently true that you 
will find in the Carpenter just what you look for. He 
is the Lamb of God. He is the Son of God, whatever 
you may find or fail to find. If you approach the Car- 
penter of Nazareth with the word Master, He will 
reveal Himself to you as the Mightiest among the 
Mighty and the Holiest among the Holy. 

They asked: ‘“ Where dwellest thou?” The sug- 
gestion is the hope of further association and fellow- 
ship. ‘They wished the intimate connection with this 
new-found teacher, leader, Saviour, which would 
unfold the great realities of time and eternity. 
“Come and see.” ‘The royal invitation to an abiding 
comradeship! 

Thus at the very outset Jesus made it clear that what 
He wants is intimacy with His followers. ‘“ Come ”— 
this was the glad word of Him who was the full mani- 
festation and expression of God. How different from 
the conception of God entertained by the mass of hu- 
manity when Christ came! God was feared but not 
loved. He was thought of as bent on the punishment 


INCLINE FROM DOWN TO UP 33 


and destruction of the disobedient. The idea that He 
would be willing to enter into a real comradeship with 
man, was never entertained. With open arms the great 
loving Father, through His Son, cried: ‘“ Come!” 
They followed. They stayed with Him. For two 
days such fellowship was enjoyed as earth had never 
before witnessed. Here was the beginning of Com- 
radeship with the Carpenter which constitutes real 
Christian living. Andrew could not enjoy this fellow- 
‘ship alone. Contact with the Carpenter awakens im- 
mediately the sharing spirit and the sharing habit. 
Fellowship with Jesus crucifies pride and selfishness 
and develops a keen interest in those who do not know 
the blessedness of companionship with God. This 
sharing spirit is a Christian product. Was there a 
hospital in the world before Jesus came? Were there 
any retreats, asylums, homes for the unfortunate? 
None recorded. In the records of great famines do 
you find such works of relief as the Red Cross of our 
day? Benevolence and charity are the result of com- 
radeship with the Carpenter. One cannot walk with 
Him, talk with Him, pray to Him, without imbibing 
His Spirit of world-wide love. 

Andrew was not content to enjoy this new-found 
life alone. He rushed off to his brother, with the ex- 
ultant cry: “We have found the Messiah!” He did 
not argue about it. You have never known a man to 
be saved by argument. He did not enter into a long 
dissertation. “ He brought him to Jesus.” If that had 
not worked, then Peter would never have become a dis- 
ciple. It is the one and only way of convincing men 


34 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


that the Messiah is here. ‘Take them to Him. First 
know you have found Him, then, by a warm testimony 
and loving interest, lead another and then another to 
Jesus. ‘‘ Win one more.” 

When Simon that day went with his brother and 
found Christ, a luminous truth broke upon the world. 
It is this, that when one enters into comradeship with 
Christ he is in very reality a new person. He has a 
new name. ‘There is no distinction of which one should 
be prouder than the distinction of being a Christian. 
Jesus said to Simon: “ Thou art Simon, Son of Jona. 
Thou shalt be called Peter, a stone.” ) 

_A name stands for a personality. A new name means 
a new personality. Jesus gives us His own name. We 
become Christ-ians. Henceforth ye shall be called 
Christ-ian, He says to the new believer. | 

Who could have dreamed, when the two disciples 
heard Him speak and followed Him, inaugurating the 
new movement called Christianity, that the Carpenter 
would win Comrades until, as now, five hundred mil- 
lions rejoice to say: “I am a Comrade of the 
Carpenter.” 

Then Jesus found Philip. Here is the practical ap- 
plication of the seeking shepherd. Divine concern for 
comradeship, that is the blessed thought. He is still 
seeking for Comrades. In the shop, the store, the 
counting room, the farm, everywhere. What an en- 
couragement to discipleship, that God makes it His 
concern whether or not we know and love Him. Philip » 
found Nathanael. One by one, the additions to the 
circle are made. Personal aggressiveness in winning 


INCLINE FROM DOWN TO UP 35 


men to the Master is what we mean by evangelism. It 
is tremendously effective. The need was never greater 
than today. Find some one. The most interesting 
activity in the world, is bringing men into fellowship 
with Jesus Christ. It is wonderful what can be done 
with the most unlikely subjects. The saveableness of 
every man must be an article of faith, or we will neglect 
our opportunities. Philip announced the greatest dis- 
covery a human being ever makes. He said: “ Thou 
art the Son of God. Thou are the King of Israel.” 
The genius of man is wonderful. The courage of 
great discoverers is beyond praise. But human inven- 
tion and human discovery reach their climax in the 
discovery of the Nazareth Carpenter as the Christ of 
God, the Saviour of the world. Following Jesus is the 
highest privilege, with the largest rewards, to be found 
among men. Follow Him. Follow Him to life, to 
light, to truth, to glory! Follow Him when the road is 
rough and the day is dying and dangers are on every 
hand. Follow Him in your struggle for the best. It 
is following Jesus that changes the incline of life from 
down to up. 

This is the great business of Christianity, to change 
the course of life and give it an upward swing. How- 
ever slight at the first, the upward incline will land him 
who follows it at the throne, where a closer companion- 
ship than earth affords will be the experience of every 
Comrade of the Carpenter. The one great thing pro- 
claimed at the very outset, when Christianity was just 
beginning, was comradeship with God through the 
Carpenter of Nazareth. In a new and wonderful way, 


36 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


man was being linked to God. It is the highway to the 
Highest. 

Follow Him, and you will think Divinely. Man 
reaches his best in mentality when he “has the mind 
of Christ.” Follow Him, and nobility of feeling, with 
all of its exhilarations and noble enthusiasms, will fol- 
low. Follow Him, and your will power will become 
masterful. Follow Him in working, and service will 
be sanctified and commonplace work become a holy 
thing. Follow Him, in His solicitude for the happi- 
ness and exaltation of mankind, and your life will be- 
come a resistless appeal, winning a world to God and 
’ truth and duty and nobility and peace. 

Amid the babel of voices today His voice is ringing 
clear, “‘ Follow me.” 


Ill 


WATER, WINE AND A WEDDING 


THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “ Fill the water-pots with 
water, ... Bear to the governor of the feast.’-—JouN 2: 7-8. 


THE most significant events of life are sanctified by 
Divine recognition. ‘There was a wedding in Cana 
of Galilee.” A Wedding—the event superlative. A 
culmination, a consummation, an inauguration. Woo- 
ing, winning, waiting, willing, then—a wedding! 
What an event! The sum total of personality, mind, 
heart, spirit—all in action. The divinest of emotions, 
the sublimest purposing! Covenant, in its most holy 
expression—all ordained of High Heaven! Eden! 
“And the Lord brought unto the man the woman 
which he had made.” “ And they twain shall be one.” 
Blossoms, bells, blessings! A wedding! What word 
of our language is more weighted with meaning than 
the word home? The wedding is laying the corner- 
stone of a great institution, a home. Corner-stones are 
laid amid great ceremonial. But what institution can 
compare with the home in its possibilities of weal or 
woe? Every wedding means abounding joy, with an 
inevitable sorrow when one or the other is called to the 
Home eternal. Lights and shadows all along the way. 
Trial and triumph, joys and jolts, and all vastly more 
significant because two, and not one, experience the 
successive events of life. 


37 


38 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


The Carpenter and His Comrades at a wedding! 
The social relationships of life are matters of concern 
to Jesus Christ. Christianity is tremendously interested 
in home-making and home-makers. What the home is, 
that will the nation be. The home is the sacred center 
of those emotions and principles that make organized 
society progressive or retrogressive. A wedding 
should always have the seal of religion. 

Why Cana? Jesus was not born in a metropolis. 
He was not raised in a conspicuous center of political 
and social influence. Bethlehem His birthplace, and 
Nazareth His home. It was to say, He proposed to 
’ enter the simplicities and commonplaces of life and 
exalt them. Indeed, there is nothing commonplace to 
the Carpenter, if it has to do with human happiness and 
personal ennoblement. So He came to Cana. No mat- 
ter how small the hamlet in which your life is spent, or 
how humble the cottage where you abide, your Com- 
radeship with the Carpenter may be as sweet and life- 
giving as though you dwelt in a palace at the very 
center of world influence. Many a cottage in a se- 
questered valley, far away from the marts of trade, has 
been the place selected of God for the fullest manifes- 
tation of His love, and the place where He could de- 
velop His leaders for splendid Kingdom movements. 
How often Sir Walter Scott yearned for the simplici- 
ties and blessedness of the little cottage where he began | 
his wonderful career, after he had moved into the pal- 
ace at Abbottsford! The Carpenter has the faculty of ' 
sanctifying all with which He deals and of lifting to 
high levels all He touches. It is not where you are born 


WATER, WINE AND A WEDDING 39 


or where you live that signifies, but what is in you of 
God and goodness, and what you do with the powers of 
mind and heart with which you are endowed. 

“The Mother of Jesus was there.” An occasion is 
made eventful by the personalities represented. What 
a touch of beauty is given to the story in revealing the 
fact that Mary was present. How she must have 
graced any and every occasion where she was an hon- 
ored guest. What an atmosphere she would create! 
We do not worship the Virgin Mary, but it is a ques- 
tion whether or not we sufficiently venerate the Mother 
of our Lord. Were we to think more of her pure 
beautiful consecration to the holy task of motherhood, 
would not chivalry be more common? Womanhood 
might be treated with greater consideration, and a 
kindly courtesy more practiced, were we to dwell on 
the fact that God Almighty chose a woman to be the 
agency of His coming to earth as the world’s Saviour. 

There is a pitiful lack of gallantry today. The grace 
and beauty of womanhood as such is forgotten, with 
the result that the finer qualities of manhood have scant 
expression. Man should be chivalric, kindly, sympa- 
thetic, considerate of woman, because he owes life itself 
to her, and also because he owes it to woman that God 
was manifest in the flesh, uniting humanity and Divin- 
ity in one sacred personality. The event at Cana has an 
added beauty because “The Mother of Jesus was 
there.” Have you ever noted that a large number of 
the events and incidents narrated in the Gospels are 
anonymous? ‘The wedding at Cana is anonymously 
reported. Thus it may represent any and every wed- 


40 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


ding in the world. Just as we dedicate a monument to 
“The Unknown Soldier,” so the wedding at Cana 
represents any and every marriage feast and any and 
every marriage altar, among all races and peoples. 
Then came the Carpenter. Invited? Of course. 
He and His comrades are honored guests. ‘Their ar- 
rival is at a moment of embarrassment. Happy the 
bride and groom fully conscious that Jesus has honored 
the occasion by His approving presence. It will make 
every difference with the feast and what follows. It is 
doubtful if any marriage is a worthy marriage unless 
the Carpenter has come to hallow the ceremony. No 
' sooner has Jesus arrived than an embarrassing situation 
develops. The wine has given out! It is quite possible 
to lose the wondrous beauty and mighty meaning of 
this event in the life of Jesus by discussing the nature 
of the wine at this wedding. How easy to lose the 
soul-thrilling music of an Oratorio by centering thought 
upon some one instrument in the accompanying orches- 
tra, discussing what it is, by whom made, and just who 
is playing it. You can lose entirely the splendors of a 
wonderful landscape by occupying the mind in a con- 
templation of the glass through which you are looking. 
Wine was universally used, and Jesus conformed to 
custom, unless there was some sufficient reason for 
breaking with it. The wine failed. It represents the 
emergencies of life in which we are inadequate to meet 
conditions. Such experiences are sure. No matter 
how carefully you have anticipated your needs, the 
hour comes in every life when demand is greater than 
natural supply. Some great and unexpected emergency 


WATER, WINE AND A WEDDING 41 


reveals our weakness, our insufficiency. There will be 
a time in life when the natural ardor of youth is not 
enough. The wine of natural ability will have been 
turned out, and there will be nothing to take its place, 
unless you have been careful to have the Comradeship 
of the Carpenter. It is a sad thing to come right up 
against the impossible, with no Christ upon whom you 
have been accustomed to call. Praying will seem 
strange to you, because you have not learned the lan- 
guage of prayer nor the way whereby assistance can 
be secured. He is wise who carries his letter of credit 
with him, so that his petition will be honored and his 
wants supplied. 

Instinctively in life’s emergencies men turn to God. 
At Cana how came it that the eyes were turned to 
Jesus? There was an attitude of confidence and 
expectation. “ Whatsoever he saith unto you, do 
it.’ The words of His mother. She knew. She 
understood. | 

To whom shall we turn in the moments of great 
stress, disappointment and embarrassment, if not to 
Him who has met every emergency of life for every 
child of humanity since He walked among men? To 
whom shall we look for direction if not to the great 
Comrade? He will always be the one whose word is 
finally authoritative. The appeal to Christ is always 
successful and abundantly rewarded. Mary did not 
say: “ Use your best judgment as to what is best to do. 
Your own past experiences must be your authority. 
You have in yourself all that is necessary to meet the 
present need.’’ She knew better. It was not a ques- 


42 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


tion of natural resource but of Divine resource. 
‘“‘ Whatsoever he saith unto thee, do that.” It is the 
safe course today, just as it was at the Cana wedding. 

The direction is unmistakably plain. “Fill the 
water-pots with water.’ Nothing could seem more 
unlikely to meet the need of the moment. It is a ques- 
tion of implicit faith and hearty obedience. Precisely 
so it is with respect to religious duty. The underlying 
reasons are not always apparent. Subordinate features 
are not fully understood. There is much that is mys- 
terious. What matters it, if the great main duty is 
made clear? ‘There was nothing unreasonable about 
the requirement. But there was nothing about it that 
gave immediate assurance of success, beyond the fact 
that it was Jesus who made the demand. The lesson is 
that of implicit obedience and of great expectation. 
What is rarer than obedience that does not quibble 
over details and hesitate until the opportunity has 
passed? ‘The striking thing in the little story, “ Taking 
a Message to Garcia,” is that the messenger accepted 
the commission without a single question, because he 
trusted the wisdom of his chief. He went. He went 
immediately. He went cheerfully. He delivered the 
message, and his mission was a success. Ordinarily 
request or command meets with: “ Why?” Our 
obedience is not an irrational one. The Carpenter re- 
quests nothing of His Comrades that is against reason. 
He does not, however, give all His reasons. He wants 
to be trusted. 

“They filled the water-pots to the brim.” Large ex- 
pectation! They wanted the largest and the best, and 


WATER, WINE AND A WEDDING 43 


so asked for it. It is no mark of either faith or wisdom 
to ask meagerly. When you ask favors of royalty you 
expect them to be on a royal scale. 


“ Thou art coming to a King— 
Large petitions with thee bring.” 


Expect the biggest, the greatest, the best, in your pray- 
ers. That is an utterly false idea of prayer which 
excludes belief in definite action on God’s part to 
meet a human need. That is indeed the very essence 
of the meaning of prayer. Of course, there is sub- 
jective advantage, aside from the gift desired. Com- 
rades of the Carpenter get into closer touch with Him 
through petition. But they get much more than an 
exalted feeling and a sense of nearness to Him. They 
get what they need to meet any emergency of life. At 
Cana when the wine failed what they wanted was not 
a little better feeling and little closer Comradeship. 
They wanted wine—and they got it. Hold to the 
thought that the Carpenter today has within Himself 
everything needed by His Comrades. Jesus was not 
going about Galilee making wine for people promis- 
cuously. Here was an opportunity to show once and 
for all that God has an interest in the social relation- 
ships of life. Here was a chance to make a definite 
demonstration of what prayer will do for humanity. 
He took advantage of it and taught the lesson. 

The munificence of God is emphasized. He gives 
abundantly above all that we ask or think. Jesus at 
the wedding exceeded all expectations and went a long 
way beyond the absolute need. 


44 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


Comrades of the Carpenter never despise the use of 
means. Jesus utilized the water to accomplish His 
work. That is an idle prayer which ignores all means 
for healing and for meeting the needs of life. Every 
means available should be employed. Up to a certain 
point we must answer our own prayers. If the water- 
jars had not been filled with water, there would have - 
been no wine. Do your part, or stop praying. 

How definitely we are taught that only the outpoured 
life. can expect to enjoy the inflow of Divine power and 
love! ‘‘ Bear to the governor of the feast.” Until they 
did, the power was not working. It is useless to expect 
anything of Jesus Christ today if we are simply to 
make what we receive a felicity and not a force. We 
receive just what we are willing to use to His glory. 
Life may always increase in worth and in loveliness. 
“Thou hast kept the good wine until now.” Cheering 
thought. With the advancing years there may be a 
growing value and worthfulness to personality. All 
depends on the immediateness of our contact with Jesus 
Christ. Only the Comrades of the Carpenter can ex- 
perience this glad satisfaction of constant betterment. 
The wine of life should have a better flavor as time 
passes, and our gifts enrich humanity more and more. 
Why should life grow stale and wearisome? It need 
not. Perpetual youth, together with the added virility 
which experience will bring, will reserve the best wine 
to the last. 

The Carpenter is still working this old-time miracle. 
He is effecting transformations in the lives of His 
Comrades. He is improving both the quality and the 


WATER, WINE AND A WEDDING 45 


quantity of life. He pours His own vital forces into a 
soul and, lo, the mind acts more vigorously and with 
greater accuracy. Intellectually the wine improves with 
years of fellowship with Him. He transforms ordi- 
nary moralities into deep and lasting spiritualities. 
Mind, soul and body, all find their best through the 
inflow of the life of Christ today. 

“This beginning of miracles Jesus did, and mani- 
fested his glory.” Then the purpose of the miracle 
was not to satisfy curiosity and not primarily to meet a 
physical need. It had a high objective. It was to 
authenticate what Jesus was saying and doing, and 
would later do. The balance must be kept between the 
humanity and the divinity of Jesus at that early and 
initial stage of His ministry. His comrades must be 
intellectually and spiritually stabilized. This miracle 
did it for them, and opened the way for the greater 
works Jesus was about to perform. 

He manifested His glory. First, He then and there 
declared Himself in full authority over the world He 
had created. “ Without him was not anything made 
that was made.” It is quite the vogue today in some 
quarters to dismiss Jesus Christ as a working force in 
His world. No mistake could be greater. It is easy to 
forget, when we are dealing with material things, that 
God is the God of nature and the Master of His Uni- 
verse and all of its forces. Jesus Christ as the agent 
of creation, by whose own energy the worlds were 
made, has not lessened in His creative power, but sus- 
tains the material world by the very energy that created 
it. What is a miracle? It seems strange indeed that 


46 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


the world has stumbled over this matter of the super- 
natural at it has. We need more and more to recog- 
nize the fact that God indwells everything. Imma- 
nency is the term we employ to indicate the hereness 
and nowness of God. He has never left nature to work 
out its own destiny. He stays with His world. The 
whole universe is kept and unfolded by the very power 
that brought it into being. It is a miracle when it is a 
manifestation of God, with the evident purpose of 
authenticating a message, credentialing a person, or ac- 
complishing some benefit and conferring some blessing 
that could not be given in the ordinary way. If the 
will of God is in nature, as well as His energy, then 
what more natural than that His will and His energy 
will be exhibited in an extraordinary manner to meet 
any need which could not otherwise be met? 

Nature is plastic in the hands of Christ. It is obedi- 
ent. When religion comes upon the scene of human 
inquiry and human activity, it accomplishes what 
science is not qualified to accomplish and does not pre- 
tend to do. Miracle is the emergence of the energy of 
God not ordinarily manifest, because not ordinarily 
necessary. It is the emergence of what all along had 
existed but had not needed expression. ‘The divine 
energy was already in the water before Jesus turned it 
into wine, but the occasion brought forth the result. 
The energy of God which blossoms into miracle when 
His glory and the good of mankind demands it is all | 
the time in nature. In miracle it comes to light. It is 
a creative energy just as really as the power expressed 
when the world was brought into being. If you deny 


WATER, WINE AND A WEDDING Ay 


the first creation, then of course you will doubt mir- 
acle. Once accept the fact, which is a fact, that nature 
and natural law are names for the usual expressions of 
Divine power, and miracles will not trouble you. 

There is a great social need today. Homes are rent 
asunder by the exhaustion of the supply of the wine of 
loyalty. The sacred covenant of marriage must be re- 
stored to its God-given place. Jesus Christ in the home 
is the solution of our social ills.) He and He alone can 
soften the aspersions, increase the mutual loyalties, 
beautify domestic relations, and give home its rightful 
place as a civilizing and Christianizing force. The 
comradeship of husband and wife furnishes the proper 
basis for comradeship between parents and children. 
Comradeship with the Carpenter is the one indispens- 
able need, to make home what the word signifies, a 
habitation where every spiritual beauty flourishes and 
every natural impulse is itself spiritualized. 

The sanctions of religion are tremendously impor- 
tant at the marriage altar. The Miracle-working Com- 
rade is a witness to every covenant, and when He is 
made a Comrade in daily life, infelicities are forgotten 
in the blessedness of cooperation and mutual beatitude. 

It is easy to hang the legend, “God Bless Our 
Home,” on the wall; it is quite another thing to de- 
termine yourself to become a beatitude to every mem- 
ber of your own household. Homes will never be 
more than mere habitations until the covenant of mar- 
riage is stamped with the signet ring of God Almighty 
through His Son, the Carpenter-Christ. 


IV 


THE BATTLE FOR BREAD 


THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “My Father worketh 
hitherto, and I work.’—Joun 5:17. 


Work—the dynamic word of the English language! 
Speak it, and you hear the music of a million anvils. 
Write it, and pictures portraying the progress of all 
lands and all ages appear before your vision. Sing it, 
and all the harmonies of music and all the beauties of 
art furnish a Divine melody. It is a compelling word. 
It is explosive, revealing inner potencies immeasurably 
great. In it is locked up the story of world progress 
since time began to be. It holds in its grasp the pres- 
ent and the future. Go to the Avenue of Sphinxes in 
Egypt, and look about you. An ancient and forgotten 
civilization performed prodigies of labor, building 
splendid cities, edifices that would honor any modern 
metropolis. A forest of stone constituting the magnifi- 
cent temples that stood on the banks of the Nile repre- 
sented the limitless achievements of work. ‘Toiling 
millions constructed the pyramids. Massive masonry, 
which would be handled with difficulty even with all 
the skill of engineering so well applied today, speaks of 
herculean effort in bygone days. 

The prone pillars which mark the ruins of Ephesus, 


48 


THE BATTLE FOR BREAD 49 


though mute, yet eloquently testify to the possibilities 
of work. The fluted columns, with beautifully chiseled 
capitals, still remaining on the Acropolis at Athens, 
give us the secret of the preeminence of Greece in that 
faraway day when Socrates taught ethics on a higher 
plane of spiritual beauty than any man of his day, when 
Plato discoursed on philosophy and furnished a basis 
for the learned of the earth who were to follow him. 
Physical, intellectual and moral work. That is the 
secret. 

From Phidias to Canova and then to Rodin the story 
is always the same; not genius alone but indefatigable 
toil, has produced the magnificent sculptures that adorn 
our palaces of art. Visit the great Art Galleries of the 
world, and, while acknowledging genius, we have to 
recognize that every great canvas and every beautiful 
piece of sculpture represents more of work than genius. 
In every civilized nation splendid public libraries offer 
the best thoughts of the best thinkers of all the ages. 
Miles and miles of shelves hold the treasures of truth 
that from time to time have been disclosed by men of 
intellectual power. Here again the one commanding 
thought is work. How little can we measure the un- 
remitting toil that has produced the books representing 
the wisdom and knowledge of the ages! 

The British Museum represents man’s masterfulness 
in a thousand directions, but it speaks loudly of labor- 
ious days and nights in which multitudes have given 
their best to humanity. The dominant note heard as 
you walk through the magnificent collections of art, 
and also the wonders of invention, mechanical devices 


50 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


of ten thousand kinds, is represented by that one short 
significant word, work. 

Ocean highways now connect nation with nation, 
making the whole world one. The word transporta- 
tion has in it a world of meaning. It is the key to the 
larger civilization. You think at once of the massive 
and splendid palaces of the sea which connect shore 
with shore and bring distant peoples into neighborly 
relations with each other. You see a continent threaded 
with steel and woven together with paved highways. 
You think of numberless engines, representing the 
highest skill of mechanical engineers, trailing behind 
them tens of thousands of cars weighted with agricul- 
tural products and every kind of merchandise. All is 
told in a single word, work. 

The feeding of fifteen hundred millions of people 
daily is a contract none but God Almightyy could un- 
dertake. That is what He has pledged Himself to pro- 
vide for. ‘The earth is indeed the mother of us all. It 
is Divinely provided that earth always can and always 
does furnish a sufficiency to satisfy the physical needs 
of all the inhabitants of this planet. Dearth with 
famine in one locality, is never so great that there is 
not still an abundance if it were properly distributed. 
The bow in the cloud, that became the signet ring of 
the Almighty after the flood, has never pledged in vain. 
But to make the wealth of earth available in feeding 
and housing the inhabitants of the five continents, just 
one thing is necessary—work. ‘Toilers on land and sea 
are engaged in the stupendous task of making the avail- 
able, the availing. What is the motive in all this pro- 


THE BATTLE FOR BREAD 51 


digious toil? Not work for work’s sake, poetical as 
that sounds, and possible as it might be in a perfected 
world of perfected characters. ‘‘ Art for art’s sake,” 
is a slogan that carries with it much of sentiment and 
still more idealism. No, the hard fact is that, whether 
in producing bread or making tools or constructing 
machines or building highways, or even disimprisoning 
angels from marble, or objectifying ideals on canvas, 
the commanding and controlling thing has been bread. 
Earth’s millions have always been engaged in the battle 
for bread. It is this that sends the carpenter to his 
bench, the machinist to his lathe, the architect to his 
draughting, the merchant to his store, the manufacturer 
to his factory, the student to his desk, and so on 
through the long list of activities and occupations. 
Artist and artisan have as a rule faced the stern neces- 
sity of making a living, however much they may have 
endeavored at the same time to make a life. However 
unselfishly and however ideally men have fulfilled duty 
and faced their tasks, the fact remains that, for the 
multitudes, keeping soul and body together, with what 
additional comforts and luxuries may be enjoyed, ex- 
plains the world’s work. 

A workless life is a worthless life. The struggle for 
existence has been necessary, to overcome the lure of 
luxury. Everything that moves inclines to stop mov- 
ing. The ball you throw into the air stops when the 


initial force is spent. Only a mighty incentive couldw” 


keep humanity working. But when men cease to work 
they begin to die. We are so constituted that only 
work will prevent deterioration and finally death. The 


52 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


unworked limb hangs helpless at the side. Idleness and 
parisitism are unforgivable crimes. Hence it is or- 
dained—work or starve. The battle for bread is in- 
sistent. It is fierce. It is a war that knows no 
discharge. Burdens are heavy. Blistered feet on burn- 
ing highways; calloused hands hardened by toil; bowed 
forms and aching heads—these are the hard facts of 
life. For centuries this toil was carried on with no eye 
to pity and no voice to express sympathy, from any 
visible Being above man. ‘Tears mingled with the tears 
of friends and neighbors and kinsmen. The poor were 
always exploited. The multitudes were made the sport 
of the winds of circumstance; bodies were broken on 
the wheel of servitude; work was a calamity that had 
to be endured. God was not known. 

Then came the Carpenter! Compassion, instead of 
cold synicism and cruelty; sympathy, instead of sordid 
selfishness; helpfulness, instead of heartlessness. In 
the battle for bread nothing cheers, encourages, helps, 
like knowing God cares. This is precisely what the 
Carpenter proceeded to teach. When throngs of people 
followed Him and His comrades, it is recorded: “‘ And 
seeing the multitude he had compassion on them,” It 
was a hungry multitude of workers whom Jesus saw 
and on whom He had compassion. ‘There are few 
things Jesus ever said that more endear Him to the 
toilers of earth than His word of compassion and His 
open and proud claim to be a workman Himself: “I 
work.” “I have compassion on the multitude.” In 
these words the Carpenter set the Divine seal on 
honest toil. 


THE BATTLE FOR BREAD 53 


The faculties and forces of man, physical, mental and 
spiritual, can never be safely neglected. Moreover, one 
form of toil is as good as another, and as worthy of 
recognition as another, provided the purpose be right. 
The man with the hoe is not the only worker. The 
mechanic:cannot have all the glory of being a work- 
man. Jesus was a Carpenter. That very fact endears 
Him to earth’s toilers. Yes, but Jesus never worked as 
hard in the carpenter shop, as He worked by the shores 
of blue Galilee or among the Judean hills, proclaiming 
and illustrating the love of God. It took vastly more 
energy to heal the sick, allay fevers and raise the dead, 
than to wield the axe, shove the plane or the saw. 

And the Carpenter said: “ Come unto me, all ye that 
labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” 
His promise is to the honest toiler, seeking to fulfil a 
mission in the world. No immunity from hard, weary- 
ing labor is promised Christians. When the Carpenter 
called His Comrades He said: “ Follow me, and I will 
make you fishers of men.’’ They were still to be work- 
men. He exhorted His followers: “ Work while it is 
called today, for the night cometh in which no man can 
work,” Diligence is an article of faith, with the true 
Comrade of the Carpenter. The “ rest’? He promised 
the weary, was the rest that comes from re-enforcement. 
What He promised was a sympathy and an imparted 
power which would lessen the burdensomeness of toil. 
He particularly warned them not to expect loaves and 
fishes to be multiplied in their interest, when they were 
able to provide for themselves. 

A manna-fed people soon became a restless people. 


54 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


Joshua could never have taken the land of Canaan with 
a manna-fed army. ‘Today the Church can do nothing 
with idlers and camp followers. God puts no premium 
on leisure. The very thing most of us covet would 
prove our undoing. The percentage of the scions of 
wealth who achieve great things in the world is small 
indeed. It is from the farm, the forge, the workshop 
and the marts of trade, where men are at work, God 
finds His leaders in important epochs. ‘The building 
eras in the world’s history have been eras when work 
has been recognized as the primary requisite to power 
and honor. 

Christianity can never discharge its duty without 
manifesting a deep interest in the world’s workers. 
Until we are able to ethicalize industry we shall not 


have fulfilled our mission. The battle for bread is 


needlessly severe, because industry has not been ethical- 
ized. Competitions are fierce. Labor is not adequately 
rewarded, except in certain trades. "The multitudes 
have never had their full share. 

But do not forget what has been achieved since Jesus 
came. Then slavery was the rule and not the exception. 
Labor was frowned upon. The workman was little 
better than an animal of drudgery. Conditions have 
vastly improved. It has remained for the Comrades of 
the Carpenter to teach and preach and urge the applica- 
tion of the Golden Rule, the very best rule the mechanic 
ever carries. The Golden Rule in industry will never 
be effected by legislative enactments. Laws can assist 
in alleviating barbarous conditions, but they can never 
bring about that good will without which work will still 


THE BATTLE FOR BREAD 55 


be done at great sacrifice of peace and comfort. With 
proper economic conditions, there would be no unem- 
ployment problem. The Church cannot be silent in the 
face of unrequited toil. A living wage must be a con- 
cern of the Church of God. Too readily we excuse 
ourselves from the unpopular task of protesting against 
inequalities and cruelties. If the Comrades of the 
Carpenter do not take a hand in bringing about better 
conditions and better rewards for the toilers, then no 
one will do it, and the compassion of the Carpenter 
will find no practical expression. 

We often hear that the working classes are not in- 
terested in the Church. Two things may be said: first, 
that it is not true, since workmen are the mainstay of 
the Church today. The Church would speedily go 
down if she had to depend on those who sneer at labor 
for her support. The Church is on the whole a work- 
man’s church. By this term, of course, we include 
women as well as men. The second thing to be said is 
that if workmen are not interested in the Church, it is 
an evidence of inexcusable stupidity, because the 
Church is now and has always been the best and the 
only true friend the workman has had. The compas- 
sion of Jesus has found expression, all through the 
years, in His followers. No one appreciates the hon- 
orableness of toil as the comrades of Him who said: 
“My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.” 

Comradeship without sympathy is impossible. It is 
just because the Incarnate Son of God experienced the 
trials of the shop that today He can become the shop- 
mate of men who are doing the work of the world. 


56 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


If Jesus had not toiled, He would never have been 
understood. A “ fellow-feeling”’ is created where 
another endures what we endure, suffers what we suf- 
fer, wearies as we weary, weeps as we weep. All these 
experiences Jesus passed through. ‘That is why we 
know He is “ touched with the feelings of our infirmi- 
ties.’ He understands, when you return to your home 
at night wearied with the day’s toil and sometimes ask 
yourself: ‘‘ Does it pay?’ He understands, when the 
body is bent and the hopelessness of it all looms up so 
large that enthusiasm dies. He worked. He, too, was 
weary. It is: “ Come—I will give you rest,” that has 
encouraged unnumbered multitudes to renew the battle - 
for bread, day by day, and falter not in the fulfillment 
of duty. It wonderfully lessens the arduousness of 
toil to know that Divine sympathy will express itself in 
empowering and re-creating of body and mind. 

Work must be honored as it has never been. More 
and more toil must be applauded, crowned. Save your 
contempt for the man who looks down on work and the 
worker. He it is who adds to the weight on the shoul- 
ders of labor. A larger fellow-feeling for all who are 
handicapped, and yet who continue in the race, should 
be ours. 

There should be no stratification of mankind; but if 
there is stratification, let it be remembered that the 
honest laborer doing the day’s work without a grouch | 
is at the very top. The approval of the Carpenter was 
for the one who builds, the man or woman who is 
adding something to the wealth of the world by toil. 
The unrecognized and the undistinguished toilers are 


THE BATTLE FOR BREAD 57 


pulling the world’s chariot of progress forward. Greet 
them with a cheer! Day’s work, alone, determines the 
wealth of nations and the growth of individuals. 
Loaves are not for loafers. The laborer in any and 
every field of labor is worthy of his hire. Equal pay 
for the same service, is the Gospel rule. A square deal 
for every human being must be the goal toward which 
the Church presses her claims in behalf of all. A free 
field and a fair chance, that every man may claim. To 
this end, we must Christianize governments. To this 
end, we must humanize and Christianize industry. 
There is no “well done” for drones and drifters. 
Idleness makes life futile, fruitless and flabby. The 
Carpenter would make comrades of all who accept Him 
and who purposefully invest their energies in the in- 
terests of a better world. 


V 


IN THE FIELDS AND AMONG THE, LILIES 
WITH THE CARPENTER 


THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “Consider the lilies of 
the field, how they grow.’—MartrHEw 6: 28. 


THE Carpenter was no obscurantist. He spake in 
parables. His parables were capable of diverse inter- 
pretations. They concealed the truth from him who | 
purposed to use it for the Master’s destruction. They 
revealed the truth to him who desired to avail himself 
of its blessings.* 

The parable is an amplified proverb. It is illustrative 
and presents difficult truths in a pictorial language, easy 
of comprehension. Everything in the Book of Reve- 
lation indicates the desire of God Almighty to make 
Himself understood. He wants to be personally 
known. From His first communication until the pres- 
ent hour, every method of which the human mind can 
conceive has been employed by the great Father to 
make His children know Him. Poetry, prophecy, 
theophany, symbol, parable, all have been employed to 
make the will of God known to man, and the very 
being of God sufficiently understood by man, to insure 
a real companionship. 

Among the first acts of the Carpenter were mani- 
festations of a kindly and sympathetic interest with 


58 


IN THE FIELDS WITH THE CARPENTER 59 


humanity in its sorrow and suffering. At the very 
outset, He proclaimed the goodness of God. The diff- 
culties of making Himself known to His comrades 
were tremendous. He must employ a language which 
they could well understand. The teaching of the Car- 
penter is singularly free from technical terms and what 
might be styled “ theological language.” There is a 
very beautiful directness about all the utterances of 
Christ. It was not merely the fact that His Comrades 
_of that hour were unlearned, but that those who were 
to become His Comrades through all the coming centu- 
ries would need the same simplicity and directness in 
teaching which He then employed. He made it very 
apparent that truth could be revealed only to those 
who are ardently and sincerely seeking it. He also 
made it clear that in His parables and metaphors and 
symbols, the very passion of His Soul was to reveal 
God, and not to conceal Him. Any temporary obscur- 
ation resulting from the method of the Carpenter was 
only with the purpose of a later and a larger illumina- 
tion. He said: ‘‘ There is nothing hid which shall not 
be made manifest.’ He boldly and unhesitatingly pro- 
claimed Himself as the supreme light of the world. 
What He said and what He did were only expressions 
of what He was. What He was, was ‘‘ God manifest 
in the flesh.” ‘There is much that is mystical and to 
the natural mind obscure in the Bible, but everything 
that is essential to the complete unfolding and ultimate 
perfection of character, is understandable by the aver- 
age mind. This wonderful Teacher called attention to 
the fact that a definite intellectual concentration is the 


60 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


ad 
one thing that can ever make revelation real to him 
who reads it. Hence He says: ‘“‘ He that hath ears to 
hear, let him hear,” and He also says: ‘‘ Take heed 
what ye hear.” ‘There is so much that is untrue which 
purports to be true that only a discriminating quest for 
truth wi!l discover it. 

In Shakespeare’s description of the poisoning of 
Hamlet’s father, the murderer is represented as pouring 
the fatal substance into the ear of the victim while he 
is asleep. People are in danger of being asleep men- 
tally and spiritually, during which period of somno- 
lence the poison of untruth, unbelief, heresy, may be 
poured into the spiritual ear, with just as deadly effects 
to the soul as were the contents of the vial to Hamlet’s 
father. It is not unusual for people who have become 
dissatisfied with their spiritual attainments to seek relief 
in directions which only aggravate and do not alleviate 
the difficulty. There is only one antidote for untruth, 
and that is truth. The only way of assuredly finding 
the truth is to seek it at its central source. There is no 
substitute for truth. 

We are told that in Jamaica the inhabitants were at 
one time suffering great injury on account of the de- 
structive work of innumerable armies of ants. They 
were told relief could be found by importing the “ rifle 
ant,’’ since these ants would destroy completely the in- 
sects which were working such havoc. No sooner, 
however, had the “ rifle ants” made way with the com- 
mon pest, than they in turn began to devour everything 
in reach. ‘They were more voracious than those that 
had preceded them. In Scripture language, “the last_ 


IN THE FIELDS WITH THE CARPENTER 61 


state of the people was worse than the first.’’ People 
whose Christianity has been formal, nominal, and 
largely a pretence, leaving them with no real soul- 
satisfaction, but making them simply miserably re- 
ligious, have often turned to new cults, have adopted 
untried theories and speculations. But all to no avail. 
The final result has been that even the remnant of 
belief which they had has been by this method com- 
pletely destroyed. 

The Christian life is primarily a revelation, then a 
revolution, then a responsibility and, finally, a law of 
life and an expression of love. The teachings of the 
Carpenter were all in the nature of a revelation, through 
direct instruction and then by Comradeship. 

It is interesting to note that in illustrating truth for 
the benefit of His Comrades, the Carpenter took them 
to the things with which they were most familiar. He 
never used human art, or mechanical devices, but di- 
rected their thought to the birds, the flowers, the fields, 
the fruits; to animal life, to nature in some form of 
its manifestation. His wisdom in this is to be found 
in the fact that from childhood to old age, people find 
a marvelous beauty in the parables of Jesus. In one of 
His charming parables their attention is directed to the 
ordinary process of seed-sowing, cultivation and har- 
vest. He stressed esvecially seed-sowing. In inter- 
preting the parable, He tells them that the seed is the 
Word of God, the soil their own hearts, and that they 
have a responsibility which cannot be delegated. In 
His great world-commission the Carpenter made it 
clear to His comrades that this world cannot be saved 


62 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


by magic, but by a process as simple as, and very much 
like, seed-sowing and harvesting. God’s Word, per- 
fect though it is, must have a chance to grow. ‘The 
seed must be selected with care, and the soil must be 
kindly receptive. 

The most wonderful thing which nature unfolds, 
when we are in true Comradeship with the Carpenter, 
is the lesson of growth. Jesus called attention to the 
fact that after a man has sown the seed, he can do 
absolutely nothing to accomplish its germination, that 
its growth is entirely independent of human activity; 
that its flowering and fruitage are through a process 
entirely beyond the reach of man. It springs up and 
grows, he knows not how. He is leading them by 
steady degrees to a recognition of that most mysterious 
of all things results of which we observe; namely, 
growth. A seed is one of the most interesting of all 
objects in nature. Its potencies remain undestroyed 
through centuries and millenniums. Wheat taken from 
the mummy-wrappings in Egypt has, under the chem- 
ical influences of the soil and the appeal of the sun, 
revealed the fact that that mysterious force within it 
was beyond the touch of time. Sunshine and shower 
can alone call out and up those potential forces in a 
seed placed there by the Infinite Creator. Germination 
and growth are God’s part, and no effort of ours can’ 
in the slightest degree aid it. Growth is the command- 
ing thought with father and mother when a little child 
comes into the home. Weighing the baby has all the 
significance of a religious ceremonial. It is an act 
often repeated. ~ 


IN THE FIELDS WITH THE CARPENTER 63 


One of the most vivid recollections of childhood is 
standing against the door-frame at various intervals 
to discover the joyous reality of growth. The slightest 
addition to one’s stature during childhood is an occasion 
for exclamation and satisfaction. Arrested develop- 
ment is one of the saddest of human experiences. 
How much more important all this is when related to 
mental growth. When school studies begin, we quickly 
become interested in the evidences of growth. Marks, 
supposed to indicate rapidity or tardiness of intellec- 
tual unfolding, are watched with even greater interest 
than were the marks upon the door-frame. At first, 
we are interested that our marks declare that we have 
“passed.” Later, this is not sufficient. We want to 
know that we have surpassed. Nothing brings more 
consternation to a student than to find that for the 
moment he has come to an impasse in any distinct line 
of study. But there is something greater yet. It is 
spiritual growth. 

The Carpenter took His comrades first to the fields, 
then to the lilies of the field. Here was growth, re- 
sulting in beauty. Brilliancy and loveliness are both 
characteristic of “the lily of the field.” The primary 
purpose of the lesson seemed to be to prevent the undue 
agitation and worriment so characteristic of the people 
of Christ’s time, and of every time, incapacitating men 
and women for the largest service of life. Divine in- 
terest in human development is the underlying thought. 
God cares constantly, cares tremendously, whether or 
not His children are growing. If growth is the great 
concern in life, it is important to know its conditions 


1 
64 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


and its secret. The Carpenter taught that there is a 
human side to growth which may not be neglected. 
Fach one must provide the proper environment for the 
seed and then plant the seed itself. God does the rest. 
The protest was against man undertaking to do what 
only God can do. The promise was a Divine cooper- 
ation guaranteeing the gradual unfolding in sweetness 
and beauty of any life surrendered to sacred influences. 
The one environment which is calculated to cause the 
spiritual seed to germinate and grow is Comradeship 
with the Carpenter. This and this alone makes possible 
what we call self-realization. 

Right here we find Christ’s doctrine of Evolution, 
which is definitely and distinctly His own. It is sim- 
ply this, that what God has potentially put in, He super- 
naturally calls out. Nothing is unfolded that is not first 
infolded. What is in the seed is not pushed out from 
within, but is pulled out by influences and forces out- 
side the seed. The seed does not germinate and become 
the shoot, the stem, and then a reproduction of itself, 
except through the call of the sunlight and the shower. 
Neither in the natural or the spiritual world do the 
germinal powers of the seed find expression, until called 
out from above. ‘The blade, the ear and the full corn 
are not pushed up from below. They are pulled up 
from above. Of course the germ of life is within. 
Every great development in the vegetable and the ani- 
mal world represents a careful application of the laws 
and principles of life and growth. Unaided nature does 
not at any time or anywhere improve on the past. 
Nothing in God’s universe surpasses itself by virtue of~ 


\ 


IN THE FIELDS WITH THE CARPENTER 65 


anything naturally inherent. The farmer has faith in 
the fertility of the soil and the effect of the sunshine 
and showers. He selects the seed and by selection 
secures improvement. Spiritually we must have faith 
in the fertility of the soil, in the drawing power of the 
Holy Spirit, to bring to beauty and fruition God’s 
Word sown in the heart. 

The lily of the field, gorgeously arrayed, did not 
reach its wonderful beauty in a moment of time. No 
more do we secure immediately a full manifestation of 
the Christian graces. Those qualities of character most 
admired are the result of cooperative effort between the 
Carpenter and His Comrades. The one thing which 
brings the lily of the field to its beauty, is obedience to 
the laws of life, health and growth. We lay great 
emphasis upon the fact of law, in nature. We observe 
that in the natural world everything that acts, acts law- 
fully. Everything that moves, moves lawfully. Every 
chemical compound follows a definite law. Science 
reveals to us the fact that from the infinitesimal all the 
way to the immeasurable, there is motion unremitting, 
and that this motion is definitely according to fixed law. 
In other words, the great thing about nature is not law, 
but obedience to law. It is the fact that every seed that 
fulfils its purpose and reproduces its own kind, does so 
because implicitly obedient to law. The rhythmic 
movement of heavenly bodies is due to the implicit 
obedience with which all material substance fulfils the 
purpose of its creation. In human life discord and in- 
harmony are due not to the fact that they are not under 
law, but to the fact that, being under law, they are not 


66 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


obedient to the law of their being. When the Car- 
penter pointed to the lily of the field, He was simply 
saying that God is concerned for the unfolding of life 
at its best and its most beautiful, and that this can be 
accomplished by unfailing obedience to spiritual law. 
Here, however, is the great difficulty. How can this 
obedience be assured? Something is woefully wrong 
with human nature. Man does not grow as he should 
in loveliness, attractiveness, Godlikeness. Not only can 
we not expect perfection in a moment of time, but we 
cannot expect it at all, without complete conformity to 
the will and power of God. The insignificant becomes 
the immense, the imperfect becomes the perfect, 
through a process of constant appropriations of divine 
power, through contact. It is close Comradeship with 
the Risen Christ today that insures the development of 
a character like His. We become unreasonably impa- 
tient because our growth is not more rapid. Our con- 
cern need not be the rapidity of our growth but a 
relationship with God so close that He can do the grow- 
ing in and for us. It is ours to be saturated with truth 
as God has presented it in His Word, and then to exer- 
cise due diligence in our effort to express the Christian 
graces. The rest we must leave to Him. It is so 
ordered that we can work out our salvation if we have 
permitted God to work it in, through a sympathetic 
concern and a loving devotion to those who come within 
the reach of our influence. We need not think for a 
moment, however, that our energetic engagements and 
enthusiastic activities in what we call service, will do 
the work for us. It positively will not. It is only in | 


IN THE FIELDS WITH THE CARPENTER 67 


the closest fellowship with Christ, in quiet meditation 
and worshipful devotion, together with the purposeful 
activity of a truly Christian sort, that we will ever know 
the joy of real Companionship with the Carpenter- 
Christ. Such a fellowship raises the temperature in 
which the seeds of truth may develop. Radiating 
righteousness is the great business of the disciples of 
Jesus. It is just because of the gradualness of Chris- 
tian growth that we can keep our courage, believing, 
with the great Apostle, that though we have not fully 
attained and are not yet perfect, we can grow up until 
we know something “ of the measure of the fulness of 
the stature of Christ.” The full corn in the ear may 
seem to us a long way off, but if there is growth, even 
though slow, which looks toward a final perfection, we 
can be content. It is ours to entertain the confident 
belief that He who has begun His good work in us will 
carry it on unto perfection. To live with Christ among 
the lilies, to walk with Him among the flowers of the 
field, to watch with Him the falling sparrow, to think 
with Him of the eternal realities which underlie the 
visible, and which proclaim unfailingly the goodness 
and greatness of God, is sure to result in a spiritual 
_unfolding which will win eternally God’s “ well done.” 

Nature fairly overflows with God. The habit of in- 
terpreting the messages written on the petal of a flower, 
the wing of the butterfly, the leaf of the tree; the habit 
of translating the songs of the birds and the hum of 
insects or the rumble of thunder will greatly enrich life. 
It will impress us with the nearness of the Great Com- 
panion. It will awaken a desire for efflorescence and 


68 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


songfulness in our own lives. Nature is a wonderful 
book. ‘T'o study it devoutly increases its glory a thou- 
sand fold. Walking with Christ among the lilies is the 
highest of all privileges and will make clear to us the 
secret, the blessedness and the soul satisfactions of soul 
growth. 


a i a 


: ind 
en 


VI 


THE TRUTH QUEST 


THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “He that doeth the 
truth cometh to the light.’—Joun 3:21. 


IF THE truth quest were as earnest as the youth 
quest, all the world would be wise. The truth passion 
was the supreme passion of the Carpenter. He was 
the embodiment of truth so completely that He could 
say as no one else could say who has ever lived: “I am 
the truth.” It stood in His thought for the ultimate 
reality of all things. The great question of the ages 
has been Pilate’s question, asked by him in sarcasm but 
by all the world in seriousness, “ What is truth?” It 
is the question of philosophy, seeking to solve the prob- 
lem of existence. It is the question of science, seeking 
to solve the relations of things. It is preeminently the 
question, in seeking to solve the mystery of duty and 
destiny. Interrogation and investigation are as natural 
to the human mind as are hunger and thirst to the body. 
Every necessity of life commands and commends in- 
quiry. We are constituted with physical appetites for 
food and mental and spiritual appetites for knowledge. 
The neglect of the natural appetite will diminish and 
destroy us. The neglect of our spiritual appetites in 
the nature of intellectual and spiritual aspirations will 
diminish and destroy them. Food hath no value except 


69 


70 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


as it is appropriated and assimilated. Not repression 
nor depression should characterize our attitude toward 
our appetites, but direction. The Carpenter encour- 
aged the spirit of inquiry. So should His comrades. 
He did not sympathize with critical curiosity but He 
constantly led out and on in the quest for truth. Study 
for entertainment’s sake is one thing, and study for 
purposes of intellectual and spiritual growth is quite 
another. The accumulation of facts does not always 
result in wisdom. Entertainment is not edification. 
The edifying influence of truth depends much upon 
the objects in view. 

The innate desire to know is practically universal, 
and of immeasurable benefit. A little child is a bundle 
of interrogation points. The wisdom of a child’s in- 
quiry is vastly beyond the wisdom of parental knowl- 
edge. You wonder what could have ever suggested 
some of the questions which children ask. When we 
cease to ask questions, it is because we are more willing 
to be ignorant than to seem ignorant. We are obliged 
to confess ignorance by our inquiries for the sake of 
becoming wise. Most people are hindered from intel- 
lectual attainment by pride. Truth has to be wooed in 
order to be won. It will not respond to any mental 
coquetry. It does not offer itself to superficial or in- 
different thinkers. Knowledge is expensive. No mat- 
ter what university you attend, you have to pay a tui- 
tion. You do not always pay in dollars, but you pay. 
In the great university of life tuition comes high. It is 
after a multitude of mistakes and many confessions 
that we learn how to gain and use intellectual power. 


THE TRUTH QUEST 71 


The widening horizon of our day increases the range 
of learning, but multiplies the strain on mind and heart. 
Fortunately, however, facilities increase with the in- 
creased demand for acquaintance with a multitude of 
subjects. Knowledge costs in actual work, in concen- 
tration, but more especially in its humiliating confes- 
sions of ignorance, as we pursue our quest for truth. 

The difficulties of education are by no means small, 
but the difficulties of spiritual wisdom are vastly 
greater. It is much easier to confess ignorance intel- 
lectually than to acknowledge our lack of wisdom in 
ethical and spiritual matters. The Carpenter’s words 
are a striking rebuke to the agnostic. ‘‘ He that doeth 
the truth cometh to the light ;’ therefore, if we do not 
have the truth, it is because we have not done the 
truth. The logic of it is inescapable. Deceptive ap- 
pearances add to the difficulties of spiritual knowledge. 
In the spiritual realm, things cannot be taken at their 
face value. Questions of motive, purpose, program, 
introduce a multitude of factors which make judicial 
sentences difficult. 

On the western plains we have often looked out on 
what appeared to be an open sea. We could hardly 
make ourselves believe that we had not come to a large 
open lake. Mountains seemed to stretch upward in the 
distance. Villas appeared to have been builded along 
the banks of this lovely body of water. Islands stood 
out here and there like beautiful jewels on the bosom of | 
a bride. The scene was beautiful beyond description. 
While we looked, it has rolled itself up like a scroll and 
disappeared. It was a mirage. In like manner, there 


72 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


are many spiritual propositions, religious sentiments, 
and doctrinal structures which seem wonderfully at- 
tractive. When we know them more thoroughly they 
prove to be the vapor of disordered imaginations; the 
fancies of speculative minds; the delusions of dreamers. 
Because much spiritual truth does not lend itself to 
description and definition, we foolishly think it not the 
truth at all. The impalpable ether is filled with forces 
which, though invisible, are among the mightiest poten- 
cies of earth. Because a thing is intangible, does not 
lessen its reality. Because of the elusiveness of spiri- 
tual truth, many people decline to believe that spiritual 
knowledge, such as pertains to the natural world, is pos- 
sible. But it is. ‘ The things which are seen are tempo- 
ral, the things which are not seen are eternal.’”’ We have 
to learn to get in, under and behind the visible and the 
tangible to discover the permanencies, the changeless 
realities, which are of real worth in the world. 

We have not yet, however, touched upon the greatest 
hindrance to spiritual knowledge. It is to be found in 
the stern requisite stated by the Carpenter. “ He that 
doeth the truth cometh to the light.” In ethical and 
spiritual relations, we only know what we actually prac- 
tise. Experience is equivalent to demonstration. It is 
the practise of the presence of God which enables us to 
know Him. Comradeship with the Carpenter is nothing 
less than the practise of the presence of God. It is the 
practise of prayer, or the doing of prayer, which puts 
us in possession of the great truth that humanity is 
linked up with Divinity, and that God can work — 
through natural causes and gain supernatural results. 


THE TRUTH QUEST 73 


It is the practise of virtue, or doing virtuously, which 
acquaints us with the reality and the splendor of virtue 
itself. It is doing the moral law which unfolds its 
loveliness to us. It is doing the beatitudes that gives 
value to the deliverances of the Carpenter upon the 
Mount. Any theoretical understanding of the truth of 
religion falls short of being in us and to us a power for 
righteousness. It is much easier to think about religion 
than to be religious. Dissertation is much easier than 
doing. When, as is usually the case, a love for the 
merely pleasurable reaches the proportion of a passion, 
it is easier to let the higher truths alone than to dis- 
cover them by practise. The high rate of tuition in 
gaining spiritual knowledge leads to its neglect. The 
reason why truth lingers so long in the shadows and 
remains neglected is because humanity hesitates to do 
the truth. 

Spiritual truth is spiritually discerned because spiri- 
tually practised. An honest pursuit for knowledge is 
possible only to spiritual minds. A sordid materialism 
acts upon the spiritual vision exactly as a cataract acts 
upon the natural vision. The natural man has very 
little spiritual truth simply because he will not engage 
in the pursuit of spiritual knowledge by doing spiritual 
things. The Bible itself may be diligently studied yet 
neither understood nor assimilated. We are hindered 
by our unwillingness to practise the truth we do know 
and hence fail to acquire the larger truth which might 
be ours were we willing to pay the price. Until we are 
ready to say: “I will walk confidently in the light of 
larger knowledge wherever and whenever it presents 


74 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


itself to me,’ we shall not make much headway in our 
truth quest. A determination to do the truth, then, 
must be as final as our passion to know the truth. 
Prejudice perverts knowledge. Bigotry blinds. The 
high pursuit of spiritual knowledge requires a fair mind 
and a free field. 

We are endowed with a religious faculty. The mind 
working in certain directions is called a faculty. For 
example, one cannot enjoy music if the musical faculty 
has been entirely neglected. No more can you enjoy 
art unless the art faculty has been developed, giving 
appreciation of form and color. We have a religious 
faculty which enables us to lay hold of and make use of 
religious truths, but this faculty may atrophy, exactly 
as any other faculty may die from disuse. You may 
reach a clear conclusion that an Infinite Being must be 
and is, and yet have no comforting, strengthening 
knowledge of God. Active employment strengthens 
any faculty. Drift away from the sanctions of the 
Church; ignore God’s Book and trample upon His day; 
and your religious faculty becomes either atrophied or 
petrified. The tree in the forest covered over with lava 
sometimes turns to stone. The religious element in 
personality covered with accumulations of worldliness 
or even of abstract intellectualism will just as surely 
turn to stone. The reverse is true. By doing the truth 
the religious faculty is nourished, exercised, made 
vigorous, fulfils its mission, lifts us to the heights, 

Sympathy and charity were enjoyed by the Carpenter 
in the pursuit of spiritual knowledge. Proclivities, 
aptitudes and abilities differ in different people. View- 


THE TRUTH QUEST 75 


point vitally affects an individual in his search for 
truth. The governing purposes of life lead to conclu- 
sions widely different in various individuals. There is 
a wide diversity of opinion regarding much which we 
call religion. People equally honest do not interpret 
the Word of God the same way in all particulars. This 
accounts for denominational differences. When the un- 
important is magnified, the things fundamentally im- 
portant are likely to be neglected. No one denomination 
has all of the truth or the best method. For these rea- 
sons, it becomes increasingly important to keep in clos- 
est touch with Jesus Christ as our great Leader and 
Teacher. It is not our business to require that every 
one should see things exactly as we see them. Not 
every shrub and flower in God’s Eden of revelation will 
appear just the same to everybody, nor is it necessary 
that there should be this absolute uniformity of thought. 
Probably no fruit has exactly the same flavor in every 
mouth. ‘This practise of sympathy and charity does 
not for a moment do away with the fact that truth is 
truth, and that great principles are abiding and un- 
changing. Even though the flavor of a fruit may 
differ, the fact of the fruit remains. Unless the taste 
is entirely abnormal, the distinction between sweet and 
sour should appear to all. The eye which is not en- 
tirely defective recognizes the distinction between the 
beautiful and that which is ugly. In spiritual things, 
though the Comrades of the Carpenter may differ 
widely, yet on the important question of the great work 
of the Carpenter-Christ, and His matchless character, 
there should be no difference. Substantials and funda- 


76 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


mentals in spiritual things are not difficult to discover 
to those who do the truth. While insisting without 
compromise upon the greatest of all truths, salvation 
through sacrifice, we should cover with a mantle of 
charity the erroneous positions of our fellow-men. A 
strong faith can afford to be tolerant. A marked fea- 
ture of the life of Christ was its tolerance. He knew 
nothing of “liberalism ’’ which has as its only dimen- 
sion, latitude. He was too great for that. In charity 
and in tolerance no one has ever surpassed the Carpen- 
ter. The most vigorous thinkers, people with uncom- 
promising convictions, have usually manifested both 
tolerance and sympathy for those who differ from them 
in religious matters. Nothing develops charity and 
sympathy like the practise of truth. Its very difficulty 
engenders kindness, toleration, consideration. 

The rewards of a sincere pursuit of spiritual knowl- 
edge are beyond estimate. The Carpenter said: “ Who- 
soever cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out.” It 
is only another way of saying that the search for God 
which is honest and persistent will never go unre- 
warded. Refreshing, invigorating, convincing Revela- 
tion is one of the most satisfying rewards in the honest 
quest for spiritual knowledge. Another of the rewards 
is the sense of liberty which comes from a conscious 
possession of the truth. We are like explorers in a 
new country, rich in the variety of its flora and fauna, 
its mineral wealth and its magnificent scenery. Who- 
ever becomes a Comrade of the Carpenter is greeted 
over and over again with delightful surprises from un- 
expected quarters. Spiritual truth never becomes com- 


THE TRUTH QUEST 77 


monplace, and never becomes obsolete. It is adapted to 
all times and to all conditions. This is why the truths 
taught by the Carpenter become to His comrades an 
inexhaustible mine of wealth. No honest seeker for 
truth can possibly neglect that great inexorable fact in 
the world, the Bible. It isa Book with which men have 
to reckon, whether they would or not. The command- 
ing thing about the Bible is it portraiture of the Car- 
penter of Nazareth, unique, commanding, striking, 
sublime. From Him have issued the influences most 
contributive to the happiness, the healthfulness and the 
holiness of mankind. The surging spiritual influences 
radiated from the personality of Jesus Christ never les- 
sens, and never becomes less potent in power to purify 
and to exalt humanity. 

In our quest for truth, we soon discover that we get 
new truth from old teachers, and old truth from new 
teachers. New communications of truth are usually 
old truth in a new dress. Every now and then some 
individual or group of individuals proposes to guide the 
world to a fuller knowledge of God by some new 
method. Often this proposition is accompanied by re- 
flections upon old methods and old-time doctrines. It 
does not take long, however, to discover that wherever 
a truth is to be found under a new name, it is as old as 
eternity ; and usually in some preiod of the world’s his- 
tory the same sentiments in almost the same phrase- 
ology have already been offered to the world. 

The greatest of all truth is undoubtedly what the 
Carpenter designated as “ saving truth.” There can be 
no richer reward for a painstaking effort to know the 


78 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


truth through the practise of truth than we find in 
the exhilarating freedom experienced when salvation 
through sacrifice becomes a reality in life. The diffi- 
culties of life are lessened, the delights are increased, 
the trials of life are successfully defied, the triumphs 
of life are greatly multiplied, when with a conviction, 
born of discovery, we can say: “I know that my re- 
deemer liveth.” The first great business of the Church 
is to lead the world to a knowledge of saving truth. 
The second great business of the Church is building 
character through truth. It is tremendously important 
to be sure that we have the plan of the great Architect, 
and it is equally important to know that we have 
adopted it, in our building processes. We have learned 
much when we have learned the sources of power. The 
ideals of life presented in the Gospels are very beauti- 
ful, but very exacting. ‘The Comrades of the Carpenter 
are always conscious that in Him they have the perfect 
ideal. To become like Him must become the supreme 
purpose of life. Comradeship with Christ leads us at 
last to the possession of wealth which neither dimin- 
ishes nor dims. It is infinitely greater to live in the 
thought world with the Carpenter than to live in the 
world of things with unbelievers. 

The greatest of all truth is that which has to do with 
the Life Everlasting. Who can give us the sure word 
and the final word here? Threescore years and ten, or 
a little more at the longest, and we are through with the’ 
things with which we have to do here. What then? 
No one has ever appeared on the earth who gave any 
real evidence of the truth relating to the life after 


THE TRUTH QUEST 79 


death save Jesus of Nazareth. He talked with perfect 
familiarity of the things beyond the ken of human un- 
derstanding. He talked convincingly. 

Eternity is a tremendous word. Its meaning none 
can fathom. The mind is staggered by the thought of 
endlessness. Any truth respecting the endless life 
should be a matter of the profoundest concern. Here, 
if anywhere, we can only rest in certainties. Happy 
guesses do not interest us. Speculation brings no peace. 
We want to know what is to be the soul’s experience 
in the endless life. None but the Carpenter ever even 
pretended to be able to speak assuringly about eternity. 
It is not a matter of importance to truth who accepts 
or rejects truth. It is what it is, despite doubts, denials 
or hearty acceptance. It cannot be slain. It asks no 
favors and declines all compromises. It bears the seal 
of the Eternal. It cannot be laughed out of court. It 
is as resistless as the tides and constant as God. It is 
unmoved by threats or tears. It is dignified but never 
distant. Its doors are closed, but the key hangs within 
the reach of every interested inquirer. Its power and 
beauty can only be appreciated when it is received. Its 
castles do not yield to bombardment but gate and port- 
cullis respond to the touch of a child. It comforts, con- 
soles, counsels, admonishes, commands and inspires, 
and finally crowns. ‘To His comrades Jesus Christ 
offers to unfold all secrets necessary for peace and 
comfort and character construction. He is the Truth. 
Nothing is truth that contradicts His life or His teach- 
ing. Walk with Him here, and you will enjoy fellow- 
ship with Him forever and ever. 


VII 
CELESTIAL REGISTRY 


THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “ Notwithstanding, in this 
rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto you, but rejoice 
rather because your names are written in heaven.’”—LUKE 
10: 20. 


THIs reverses the appeal often heard today: “ Pay 
no attention to Heaven, concern yourself only with the 
duties of today.” The truth is, he concerns himself 
most about the duties of today who has in mind the 
conditions of eternal fellowship with God. Elation 
over self-achievement is as natural as breathing. It 
readily leads to the presumptive attitude of entire self- 
sufficiency. Man is not naturally humble. Pride is a 
predominant characteristic. “Is not this great Baby- 
lon that I have builded?”’ This was the attitude of a 
man who was riding swiftly to a fall. The Carpenter 
taught that every man rides to a fall who is engrossed 
in the glory of his own achievements. The campaign 
of the Seventy had just ended. They were comrades 
of the Carpenter appointed by Him to make once and 
for all this declaration to the world, that Comradeship 
with the Carpenter means the exercise of a power like 
His and the living of a life like His. The things He © 
had done, they were to do. This was to prove forever 
that Christ is communicable. They did it. It worked. 
With a glad surprise and a sense of the glory of 


80 


CELESTIAL REGISTRY 81 


achievement, the comrades returned to the Carpenter. 
The success which attended their efforts was so great 
that it produced auto-intoxication. They found them- 
selves in possession of powers super-normal and super- 
natural. They had been sent forth under explicit direc- 
tions. They were not left in doubt. Human need of 
any kind was not to claim their attention. The chief 
feature, however, of the Great Commission was this, 
the promise of continued comradeship. This comrade- 
ship meant an abiding power, through an abiding Pres- 
ence. The sick were healed; incarnate evil fled at their 
approach ; the discouraged and overwhelmed were filled 
with cheer; joy flowed like a river wherever they went; 
the trophies of their victories were both material and 
spiritual. Thus, at the very beginning, the Carpenter 
taught that there is no interest of humanity that is not 
to be the concern of the Church of Christ. Their ex- 
ultation was unbounded. Intense enthusiasm was domi- 
nant. Unrestrained joy burst from their hearts in an 
exultant utterance: “ Lord, even the devils are subject 
unto us through thy name!” The great Leader saw 
the perils of success. A hundred can stand failure 
where one can stand success. He recognized the inevi- 
table disaster which would follow mistaken zeal. He 
saw that the successful manipulation of supernatural 
energy might easily produce an emotional vanity. They 
were glorying in the mere fact of achievement for 
achievement’s sake. The fact of extraordinary mani- 
festation of power was uppermost in their hearts. 

It is the moment for warning. It is given. Spiritual 
fervor must have as its objective Divine glory and 


82 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


human beatitude. ‘The Carpenter promises His com- 
rades ever-increasing power; assures them that they 
will be impervious to attacks of evil; promises that the 
serpents of this world and venomous scorpions from 
the realm of darkness which lurk in unregenerate hu- 
man nature will be powerless in their efforts to destroy 
them. What they had done was only an earnest of 
what the Comrades of the Carpenter were to do through 
all the ages. “Greater things.” This is the cheering 
promise never cancelled, never abrogated, always ful- 
filled. Watch the comrades now. You can see the 
sparkle of the eye, the brightness of countenance, the 
erectness of form, the sense of self-superiority, together 
with eagerness of outlook. It is at this juncture the 
Carpenter interjects His word of caution, rebuke and 
admonition. ‘ Notwithstanding, in this rejoice not that 
the spirits are subject unto you, but rejoice because 
your names are written in Heaven.” It is as though He 
said: “ You have been successful, as I knew you would 
be, in the humanitarian work that has claimed your at- 
tention; men have watched you and marveled; you 
have startled and surprised entire communities; you 
have awakened sincere inquiry for truth; you have 
gained worldly applause ; you have become conspicuous ; 
you have had abundant evidence that you have received 
and used power divinely imparted to you. Beware! 
You are beginning to delight in power and popularity. 
Love for yourselves is taking the place of loyalty to 
God. Victory for its own sake is nothing. Victory for 
the Father’s sake and humanity’s sake is everything. 
There is one thing immeasurably better than any spec- 


—_ 


CELESTIAL REGISTRY 83 


tacular demonstration of power. My own indwelling 
in your hearts, and the resultant growth of the Chris- 
tian graces is immeasurably important. Let your 
glorying be in the fact that God Almighty has accepted 
you through Me. Rejoice that your names are written 
in Heaven.” 

The supreme question, then, is the question of Divine 
registry as an indication of Divine relationship. Not 
the Hall of Fame represents the greatest wisdom or the 
greatest work. No human scroll furnishes evidence of 
true eminence. Blessedness and felicity through time 
and eternity have in them no selfishness. ‘They only 
mark the greater ability to contribute blessing. 

The striking and the spectacular are always interfer- 
ing with the profound and the permanently real. A 
passion for notoriety, for reputation, for applause is 
apparent oftentimes even among Comrades of the Car- 
penter. Sometimes personal ambition does not go be- 
yond the household, or again is limited by the social 
relations of the community. The more ambitious are 
satisfied only with nation-wide or world-wide notoriety. 
It is indeed human to be elated by conspicuous success. 
If permitted to go unchecked, ambition of a selfish sort 
becomes a dominating power, leading to the sacrifice of 
principle and the paralysis of piety. Political power 
often turns the heads of men; social recognition not in- 
frequently unbalances the mind, breaks up friendships, 
develops haughtiness, destroys influence. Nothing is 
more sacred than personal power, and nothing is more 
perilous than its employment for unworthy ends. We 
dare not be too much occupied, in our thinking, with 


84 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


that which is merely transactional. When we empha- 
size doing more than being, we are likely to become 
self-centered, 

Peter walking the wave was a fine demonstration of 
the exercise of a contributed power, until he began to 
glory in the achievement. Then he began sinking. 
With his eye on the Carpenter, he was successful. 
While he recognized the mysterious blessing of true 
Comradeship, he was a success. Rejoicing in his own 
abilities, he became quickly a failure. Successes for 
their own sake bring no happiness. Successes as a 
means to the production of holiness and happiness are 
like Jacob’s ladder, and angels of God descend and 
ascend upon them. ‘The Carpenter had to contend with 
a bold, bald materialism, rampant in His day much as 
itis in our own. We live in a time when a new empha- 
sis is given to the transactional rather than to the con- 
ditional. The loaves and the fishes are important, but 
not supremely important. When they are given undue 
recognition, Christianity declines. The Carpenter never 
taught the neglect of the tabernacle of flesh, but He per- 
petually taught that it was only a tabernacle, and that 
there was something more sacred still at the Inner 
Shrine. Alleviating the conditions of the poor, secur- 
ing better housing, better feeding, better sanitary con- 
ditions is a part, but only a subordinate part, of 


Christianity. Philanthropy itself may become spec- | 


tacular and demonstrative to the almost total neglect 
of the spiritual and eternal. Organization and enter- 
tainment have the call today. Once more the Carpenter 
speaks to His Church: “ Minister to the needs of the 


CELESTIAL REGISTRY 85 


bodies and minds of men; rejoice, if you will, in the 
larger efficiency through organization, to lessen the ills 
of humanity, but remember that human nature is never 
changed by externalities; remember also that the su- 
preme need in this world is the transformation of indi- 
vidual lives by regeneration, which will enable them to 
live on a higher level, physically, ethically, spiritually. 
Rejoice in your celestial registration.” By this is 
meant no mere self-satisfaction in being saved, but a 
realization that only through divine approbation can the 
greater tasks of life be efficiently performed. 

It is protested that there may be too complete a satis- 
faction in the mere fact that one’s name is written in 
Heaven. Not if you understand the real significance 
of salvation. ‘There is no selfishness in the humility 
and penitence which secures pardon for the sins of the 
past, the purposefulness to live on the high plane pre- 
scribed by the Carpenter for his comrades in the future. 
To have one’s name written in Heaven means simply a 
perpetual approval by God Almighty. The supremest 
cause for human happiness lies ever in the consciousness 
that we are under the smile of God. We are the trus- 
tees of divinely given wealth. At the conclusion of a 
term of service, the accounts of a treasurer are audited. 
If correct, a word, ‘“‘ Approved,” signifies the faithful- 
ness of the trustee of public treasure. Embezzlements, 
forgeries, counterfeits, these prevent having the name 
written in the record, “‘ Approved.” The name written 
in Heaven, as Jesus presented it, signifies loyalty to 
duty, enthusiasm in service, and full obedience to the 
Divine command. 


86 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


As a voter you go to record your conviction in the 
selection of men for office. ‘The election clerk, how- 
ever, scans the roll for your name, and it is not there. 
He finds that you are of alien birth. You have not 
been naturalized. He tells you you are not an American 
citizen. You answer: “ Very true, but I concluded to 
take my chances with the rest.” He answers: “ There 
are no chances. Conditions are explicit; obligations are 
absolute; you have not fulfilled the conditions, your 
name is not in the registry; you have no vote.” This is 
quite as reasonable as to ignore the explicit directions 
whereby we become “naturalized” through regener- 
ation, and thus qualified for permanent Comradeship 
with the Carpenter-Christ. Celestial registration de- 
mands repentance, the acceptance of the Carpenter- 
Christ as Saviour, Intercessor and Advocate, which 
results in Comradeship and hence in enrolment in the 
register of Heaven. Righteousness, heart purity, 
Christlikeness, result from trust in, and companionship 
with, Jesus Christ. 

One of the great ocean liners is preparing to start on 
its transatlantic voyage. ‘The decks are crowded, and 
just as the ship is to put out to sea a man approaches 
the purser, and demands a room. ‘ Your name, sir?” 
It is given. “ You are not registered. There is no 
place for you.” “ Yes, but I have secretly entertained 
the purpose of making this trip for a long time.” 
“Your secret avowal is of no significance. Your men- 
tal intention has not sufficed. You have not fulfilled 
the conditions of registration. There is no place for 


bd 


you.” It is not enough to entertain the foolish thought 


CELESTIAL REGISTRY 87 


that you can take your chance on the next life. There 
are no chances to take. ‘“‘ With the heart, man believeth 
unto righteousness ; with the mouth, confession is made 
unto salvation.” 

No greater mistake could be made than to assume 
that Christianity anywhere or in any way endorses 
selfishness or self-seeking. The concern for right rela- 
tions with God in order to salvation is at the same time 
a concern for right relations with God in order to 
service. A service to be effective must have a noble 
objective. Whoever engages in the sublime task of 
making a life, rather than making a living, will appreci- 
ate the deep meaning of the exhortation of the Car- 
penter to His Comrades. One of the most cheering 
facts revealed by Jesus Christ is the fact that the past 
can never so dominate the future that change will be 
impossible. Christianity is filled with a boundless hope. 
A Comrade of the Carpenter invariably has outlook. 
What has been called, ‘ The Hell of the Irreparable,”’ 
has no terrors for him. He knows a wide-open future 
makes possible the correction of the mistakes of yes- 
terday. The past is not altogether irreparable. A very 
common and commonplace proverb is: “ There is no 
use of crying over spilled milk.” Like most proverbs, 
this has its foundation and origin in a Bible utterance. 
We find it in a parable Joab spoke to King David. 
Among other things, he said: ‘‘ Concerning Absalom: 
All have to die. Why lament over the death of Absa- 
lom? He must die some time, and at any rate it can’t 
be helped.”” Then this metaphor was used: “ The past 
is as water spilled on the ground, which cannot be 


88 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


gathered up again.” It is useless to worry over spilled 
water. This contains only a partial truth. It is never 
commendatory in an individual to utterly ignore the 
past. There is, indeed, much use in lamenting over 
both the irreparable and the reparable past. They 
teach us to avoid a repetition of the mistake. Sensitive 
consciences may readily become too morbid over a past 
which is beyond control. On the other hand, the edge 
of conscience may be completely dulled, and the great 
lessons already taught be lost. 

Life consists largely of cutting channels through 
which thoughts, feelings, desires, deeds of every nature 
may pour. The full expression of personal life must 
ever be under the guidance of a wisdom supernatural, 
and under the impulse of a power supernatural. The 
only way this is ever made possible is through intimate 
association with God. It was for this great purpose 
the Carpenter came, expressing to the utmost degree 
who God is, and what He is willing to be to those aspir- 
ing to the best which life affords. 

We are carving a character. At any period of life, 
we are like the sculptor who has been working on mar- 
ble. At successive periods the chips are all swept out 
of the workroom, but the statue remains. We are not 
through with the past. We never will be through with 
it. Whatever can be corrected should be corrected. 
That which is beyond our reach must be taken confi- 
dently to the great Comrade, with the request that the 
mantle of His mercy shall cover it. There is no mis- 
taking the fact that the surest guarantee of terrestrial 
progress is celestial registration. Every man needs 


CELESTIAL REGISTRY 89 


cooperation with God. No one is of himself sufficient 
to realize his own best ideals until in Comradeship with 
the Carpenter. The Church today must ‘“ watch her 
step,” or she will be guilty of such absorption in tem- 
poralities, in program-making, in the artificial and the 
transient, that she will forget that the ultimate objective 
in the Christian religion is spiritual transformation and 
perfection. The tremendous success of our great mis- 
sionary enterprises has been due in the past to the deep 
spirituality that has characterized the Comrades of the 
Carpenter in fulfilling the Great Commission. No one 
would decry the advantages and importance of educa- 
tion for belated and benighted races. No one should 
disparage the effort to bring about better conditions of 
living. Nevertheless, let us remember that the inhab- 
itants of pagan lands may become sufficiently civilized 
to engage in the practises and enjoy the privileges of a 
material Christian culture, and yet be lost. The con- 
cern of the missionary must be, if he is faithful to his 
commission, that those who come under his influence 
shall have “ their names written in Heaven.” ‘This is 
precisely the thing which in many circles is decried and 
denied. It is true, nevertheless, and deserves peculiar 
emphasis in this materialistic age. 


VIII 


THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 


THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “I am the light of the 
world.” “Ye are the light of the world.’—JoHN 8:12; 
MatrHew 5: 14. 


Licut is the symbol of all that is desirable. It is 
almost synonymous with life. It represents to the mind 
cheerfulness, safety, happiness. Darkness stands in 
our thinking for the cold, the cheerless, the difficult, the 
dangerous. We shrink from the unlighted. We em- 
ploy every device to prevent the “ unfruitful works of 
darkness,” by lighting our streets at night. The pioneer 
often builded fires, and kept them blazing through the 
night, to ward off the beasts of prey. Light represents 
mental illumination, hence wisdom. Light guides our 
footsteps and prevents stumbling. At divided road- 
ways lights are placed to direct the traveler. Only the 
lighted way is the safe way. Beacon lights warn the 
mariner of danger, or invite him to a safe harbor. 
Light means life at its brightest and best. The imagery 
employed by Jesus to declare His relation to life and 
truth, and then to describe the marvelousness of Com- 
radeship, could not more forcefully have revealed the 
illustriousness of His own life or the splendor of a 
life whose main characteristic is Comradeship with 
Himself. 


90 


THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 91 


In the great quadrangle, just outside the Temple, 
there were brought, on the occasion of the Feast of 
Tabernacles, two tables upon which were placed two 
large candelabra. Their immense lights could be seen 
far out over the city. They were designed to represent 
the pillar of fire which guided the children of Israel 
during their wilderness wanderings on their way to the 
promised land. In nothing had the goodness of God 
and the Divine majesty manifested itself more than in 
the wonderful pillar of fire. It declared the presence 
of the Infinite and also His unfailing interest in their 
progress, The utterance of Christ must have been won- 
derfully striking, with the bright lights shining as He 
spoke, when He said: “I am the light of the world.” 
The Carpenter’s proclamation was a startling claim to 
distinction. 

The autumnal period of His ministry had been 
reached. The time had come for the fullest revealing 
of the nature of His mission and also for a declaration 
of Himself, in the utmost sublimity of His personality. 
In the springtime period of Christ’s teaching He said 
little about Himself. He demonstrated, but did not 
declare. He worked miracles, and thus said: God is 
here, among you. He let them draw their own infer- 
ences regarding His Divineness. Springtime is the 
time of gaiety and gladness. Every cascade is singing 
its song of jubilee. Every opening bud is a promise of 
bloom and beauty. The autumn is different. It is 
serious. It speaks of culminations and the fulfilment 
of promise. The forests are royally appareled. It is 
the harvest time. Strength and richness combine. The 


92 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


utterance of autumn is sonorous, deep, grand. In the 
teaching of Jesus a pictorial vividness characterizes the 
closing period of His matchless life. Metaphor and 
symbol grow majestic. The arrows of thought fly 
more swiftly, and pierce more deeply. Every day now 
is a triumphal march toward Calvary. Every conflict 
issues in victory looking to that last great victory over 
death itself. All the sayings of the Carpenter are 
weighted with the wisdom of God. His latter-day 
utterances lead us into the Holy of Holies of His life 
and love. As the time drew near for His physical de- 
parture He seemed to be especially tender and con- 
cerned for His Comrades, then with Him, who should 
come into that sacred relationship in following years. 
He drew them close to Him, as a hen gathers her chick- 
ens under her wings when she sees a hawk approaching. 
The little company of Comrades contributed to Him 
something His great heart craved. You cannot read 
sympathetically the life of the Carpenter without dis- 
covering His yearning for companionship. 

We might almost say that the happiness of God is 
not complete without fellowship with mankind, for 
what did He not do to show His own yearning for the 
love and Comradeship of His children by creation? 
The Carpenter took every consistent means to increase 
and intensify the devotion of His followers for Him- 
self. He does the same today. The Divine craving 
for comradeship never lessens. In every successive 
representation of Himself as the fulfillment of Messi- 
anic hope, Christ more distinctly portrayed the office of 
the Messiah as life-giving. He saw the hopelessness of 


THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 93 


His task in dealing with those whose prejudices were so 
intense that they would distort all He said. But He 
knew His Comrades were coming to understand Him 
more and more perfectly. In the symbols employed by 
Christ we find truth portrayed in such a way that all 
people of all ages can understand Him, He was the 
universal Man. ‘This explains the up-to-dateness of 
the teachings of Jesus. There is no especial interest in 
historic fact, unless it is pertinent to the problems of 
our own day. 

With a sweep as wide as the universe, with trumpet 
tones destined to resound through the ages He had 
already proclaimed Himself the “ Bread of Life,” the 
“Water of Life,” and now with unprecedented earnest- 
ness He calls Himself “The Light of the World.” As 
the sun is the center of the solar system, so He claims 
to be the center of every true philosophy of life and 
every true religious system of life. There is no mis- 
taking that Christ intended to represent Himself as 
being unique. Yes, but vastly more than that word 
signifies. ‘Transcendently great! ‘The incomparable 
One! The Way! The only way to life and blessed- 
ness. The Truth! Yes, the personification of all truth. 
Every political, social, philosophical and religious sys- 
tem that is not Christocentric is wrong. It is contrary 
to the clearest conditions of progressive achievement. 
As the earth is dependent on the sun for its beauty and 
its fruitage, so in the moral and spiritual world the Sun 
of Righteousness contributes all. 

Light is the symbol of perfect holiness. A light beam 
is the purest of all pure things. The Psalmist ecstat- 


94 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


ically cries: “ The Lord God is a sun.” Again: “ Who 
coverest thyself with light, as with a garment.” In 
saying, “I am the light of the world,” the Nazareth 
Carpenter declared what no sage or poet or prophet 
who had ever lived would have dared to say. What 
would more quickly have repudiated any sort of 
claim to recognition, on the part of Moses or David 
or Isaiah or Elijah, than such a statement as this? 
Think for a moment of what would happen to any 
modern teacher who would say to an assembled audi- 
ence: “J am the light of the world.” He would be 
hissed from the platform. Not so with Jesus Christ. 
In view of His life, there is nothing incongruous 
about it. 

Light is the symbol of health. Sin is disease. Law 
is the condition of health, and sin is violation of the 
law. Violate the conditions of health, and disease is 
sure. We are physically dependent on the sunlight. 
Light is the great enemy to disease germs and the great 
friend of health. Comradeship with the Carpenter has 
exactly the same effect on the soul that a sun-bath has 
on the body. It gives everything that we call health. 
It is one of the characteristics of evil that it conceals its 
own deadly nature until it has undermined moral health. 
One of our philosophers defined life as “ the sum of the | 
forces that resist death.” Whenever the death forces 
gain the ascendent, it is all over. Of such a man we 
say, even while he is among us: “ He is a dead man.” 
Light sends its healing power, kills the death germs, and 
the life forces gain the ascendent. All this has its 
counterpart in the spiritual realm. 


THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 95 


Light, again, is the symbol of wisdom. We say of 
an educated man: “ He is enlightened.” Christ is the 
source of highest wisdom. Nothing was more striking 
than the way in which the disciples of Jesus became 
educated by association with Him. He was their in- 
structor by precept and example. They surpassed a 
hundred fold the educated and cultivated men of their 
day in spiritual insight, in everything that is called 
wisdom. All the accumulated knowledge of the ages 
amounts to nothing, if it does not help men to know 
God and duty and destiny. As the Light of the World, 
Jesus illuminates the understanding spiritually and 
makes clear what would otherwise remain forever in- 
accessible and unaccountable. 

Light is also a symbol of power. The pulling power 
of the sun is seen every springtime. It has power to 
awaken life in every seed. It lifts the juices to the 
treetops and clothes them with living green. It smites 
the frozen clod and prepares it for the seed sowing. It 
leaps to the top of the ice castle and brings it down 
humbly to the ocean. Light has greater dynamic force 
than lightning. The sun, and not the detonating thun- 
der, speaks most eloquently of power. Who can ex- 
plain the power or influence exercised by men devoid of 
special mental training of the schools or the influence 
of social culture? ‘The Galilee fishermen illustrate to 
the world the possibilities of the highest education and 
culture through companionship with Him who is the in- 
tellectual, the emotional, the spiritual light of the world. 
As the Light, Christ becomes the one safe guide 
through the world-mazes so baffling and often so dis- 


96 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


couraging. The sovereign cure for worry is illumina- 
tion through association with Christ. 

“He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness,” 
said the Master. These are perilous times. A very 
babel of directions sounds in the ears of the traveler. 
Like the approach to an Oriental city where a hundred 
appealing solicitors are seeking patronage, so are the 
offers of leadership today. There are many voices but 
only one Guide. You can feel safe only when under 
Divine escort. ‘The Carpenter remains the Light of the 
World today just as when He spake to the Comrades of 
that morning hour of Christianity. He will leave no 
one in doubt as to moral duty who will stand in the sun- 
light of His smile. The lighted life is the confident 
life, the expectant life, the assured life. Directions are 
easily determined after sunrise. Uncertainties regard- 
ing the Carpenter vanish as you enter into Comrade- 
ship. To know Him is to love Him, and to love Him 
is to walk an illuminated highway. The most beautiful 
lace is made in a dark room where there is clear white 
light concentrated on the pattern. These rays of light 
are indispensable. Even though there are still some 
perplexities, if we have the light of the Sun of Right- 
eousness directly on the pattern, we may be content and 
pursue our work with assurance that something beauti- 
ful and fully approved will result. The lighted life is 
the constructive life and the comprehensive life. There 
is a disposition to refer to the Christian life as creed- 
bound and grooved. Nothing could be farther from 
the truth. Viewing a landscape in the moonlight is - 
utterly different from looking out upon it in the broad 


THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 97 


sunlight. The wider view and the more satisfying 
view of all truth is where the sunlight of the personal- 
ity of Jesus shines upon it. The life of breadth and 
beauty comes from walking with the Great Companion 
up the steeps of life, illuminated by His presence. 
The complemental truth was forcefully uttered by 
Christ. “ Ye are the light of the world.” What greater 
compliment could have been paid to His Comrades of 
that time and all time? Here, then, is the opportunity 
for the life illustrious. No life need be insignificant 
and unworthy after such an assurance. It was a decla- 
ration that every child of humanity has a chance to be- 
come illustrious in the eyes of God. How few there 
are who can ever hope for anything like fame, here! 
Not one in ten thousand can receive the plaudits of men. 
and be called great. But that need dishearten no one. 
There is something greater. You can shine as the stars 
forever and ever. ‘ Ye are the light of the world.” It 
was to Comrades the Carpenter spake those cheering 
words. It is to the Comrades of today, the obligation 
and responsibility together with the high privilege of 
shining comes. Again we hear Him say: “ Let your 
light so shine before men that they may see your good 
works, and glorify your Father who is in Heaven.” 
Here is a conspicuousness that has in it no pride, no 
conceit, no presumption, no selfishness. We hide away, 
while yet we shine, just as the lantern carried at night 
does not reveal itself but the objects about it, so also 
the shining life. The service of shining is the sub- 
limest of all services. Until we become luminaries we 
can scarcely claim to be Christian. The greatest need 


98 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


of humanity is illumination. Let the light shine, and 
truth will easily be discovered. The history of world 
progress is the history of illuminated highways. Only 
the light can make the road safe. 

When Gertrude Ederle was nearing shore after 
swimming the English channel recently, bonfires and 
every sort of illumination were employed, that she might 
know exactly where to land, and the shortest and safest 
course be taken. How many there are struggling amid 
the breakers who need the light we can and should give 
them. A few days ago a great airship, the Los Angeles, 
after a voyage across the sea, hung over Boston, and 
tested out radio stations, then proceeded to Lakehurst. 
The one important thing was a lighted way and a safe 
landing. 

Jesus Christ delegated to His Comrades the task of 
reflecting His light and thus lighting the way for hu- 
manity in its hazardous journeys of life. We are the 
legatees of a rich history. Our greatest indebtedness is 
to those who have let their light shine, as civilization 
has been unfolding. Leadership above all else must be 
a leadership that lights the way. We need today lumi- 
naries who draw their own light from the Central Sun. 
The world owes nothing to those opaque bodies that 
might have been luminous, but refused to permit the 
Sun of Glory to shine upon them. 

The secret of seeing and enjoying the bright side of 
life is worth possessing. We have not far to seek. The 
bright side of life is the side upon which we shine. 
How many there are nursing their misfortunes and 
living ever in a shadowed world! Not even the twilight 


THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 99 


zone represents the hazy, murky, dismal atmosphere in 
which they move. Their song, if ever they sing, is a 
dirge. No oratorios of praise escape their lips. The 
light is shining, but they do not reflect it. Their clouds 
have no silver lining. That is never true of the Com- 
rades of the Carpenter. He shines upon all who intrude 
nothing between Him and them. Insensibility to the 
Great Light is the saddest of all conditions. Many of 
the most learned in worldly wisdom have lost sensitive- 
ness to the Sun Supernal. Flowers emit fragrance, but 
they have no sense of smell. Fruits have their delicious 
flavors, but they cannot taste. 

The bright side is not discovered, it is made. A 
search for the bright side of life is a vain search. It is 
as absurd as for a bird to search for the air and the 
blue sky. You cannot buy it, yet it is within reach. 
You cannot by searching find it, yet it is yours just by 
shining. Let God’s sunshine into your heart, and you 
have to shine. It reflects itself. That is exactly what 
Jesus meant when He said, ‘ Ye are the light of the 
world, Let your light shine.” Shine, or shrivel. 
Shine, or be sorrowful. Shine, or sink. The choice is 
yours. Your wealth will never make you a luminary. 
Your social position will never make you a light. Why 
go from room to room with an unlighted candle, hoping 
to at last find a room where there is light? Why not 
light the room you are in? 

The sun is always on the bright side of life. When 
Alexander’s horse became uncontrollable in the hands 
of the groom the great general cried: “ Turn his head 
toward the sun.” He did, and the steed was calmed 


100 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


immediately. He had been affrighted at his own 
shadow. ‘The cure for timidity is facing the sunshine. 
Looking Christward relieves the soul of all terror. The 
cloud-piercing mountain is always bright on the sun- 
ward side. The deepest valley is still flower-covered on 
its sunward side. He who refuses to become a lumi- 
nary makes a dark spot, with its chill and danger. It is 
true that heavy clouds hang over many lives. ‘There 
are business clouds and domestic clouds and social 
clouds and moral clouds that chill the world. All the 
more must we let our light shine to overcome the deadly 
influence of darkness. Light alone can bring good 
cheer and hopefulness. The Carpenter’s Comrades have 
no right to live lives of gloomy discontent. We of all 
people have reason to be happy. The warmth of the 
Comrade Divine should give the heart a tropical beauty 
in which every kind of flower and shrub and even 
Heavenly exotics can thrive. 

There is no folly greater than the folly of frowning. 
It kills the light. A scowl on the face is an evidence 
of a scowl in the heart. Kindness will develop kind- 
ness. Shining will result in more sunshine. Smile and 
others will answer. You cannot get honey from a rock, 
and you can as little get good cheer from a soul that has 
not learned the secret of shining. Urbanity of conduct 
and gentleness of attitude beget health. There is poison 
in anger. A sound body is impossible for any great 
length of time where there is an unsound heart. 

The light we send forth is a reflected light. If we 
stand away from the Sun, what chance have we of shin- _ 
ing for others? As lights in the world commending 


THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD 101 


Christ, the comrade of Christ must have good will for 
all. He must practice agreeableness, soul-nobility, 
magnanimity, courtesy, for all these are simply rays of 
Divine sunshine which come from Jesus Christ direct 
to the human heart. The light we send forth must be 
far more than the light of knowledge. Intellectual il- 
lumination is a part, but only a part, of our service of 
shining. It means a whole personality bathed in the 
sunshine of Divine love until it fairly glows with the 
Divine. It is a peace-giving, joy-producing thing. It 
makes the heart magnetic and tremendously increases 
power of attraction. It is remedial. It heals broken 
hearts. It is balm that quickly cures wounds made by 
human cruelty. The Great Light of the World must 
shine right into our hearts if we in turn are to be of real 
service to others. Electricity is generated through 
swift-moving contacts. Only contact with Christ can 
generate in the human heart electric power of a spiri- 
tual nature that can be converted into light. Our light 
is developed by using what we have. 

In the city of Chicago some years ago a little boy 
stood one day where the sunshine was streaming 
through the window in such a way that the rainbow 
colors appeared on some little slippers his mother had 
just given him. He was radiant with delight. “ Look, 
mama, what is this?”’ She answered: ‘‘ That is God’s 
smile, and I hope when you come to be a man you will 
always stand in God’s smile.” Years passed. The boy 
grew to manhood. He acquired large wealth. He 
builded a palatial home of his own choosing. His 
mother had passed on. Her possessions had been care- 


102 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


fully preserved. Now they were to be moved into the 
new house. He would entrust the work to no one. 
The first object that arrested his attention as he opened 
the trunk containing his mother’s special treasures was 
the little slippers he had worn when his mother had told 
him the prismatic colors upon his feet were God’s 
smile. In her own handwriting she had penned a little 
story of the incident and had concluded with: “I am 
afraid my William has gotten far away from God’s 
smile. God grant he may return again, and stand in 
the smile of redeeming love in the Sun of Righteous- 
ness.” He stopped reading, faced himself seriously, 
and said: “ Yes; far, far from God’s smile. But here 
and now I return, and will seek the sunshine of His 
love, until again the prismatic colors reflect themselves 
in my life.” He turned over his business to his associ- 
ates. He began at once to let his light shine on other 
pathways, and used his great wealth to bring happiness 
and health and hope into the lives of his fellow-men. 
He became a Comrade with the Carpenter, and radiated 
Christ’s love wherever he went. 

Shine, until all of life shall become one splendid 
_ manifestation of Divine Glory. Get under God’s smile, 
Breathe in it; bathe in it; live in it. 


IX 


THE CARPENTER, THE GOOD SHEPHERD 


THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “I am the good shep- 
isle 4 pope shepherd layeth down his life for the sheep.’— 
oHN 10:11. 


For striking symbolism, beautiful imagery, sublime 
simplicity, no discourse by any one in any language is 
comparable to the Carpenter’s discourse to His Com- 
rades on the “ Good Shepherd.” No modern preacher, 
if he could, would dare to go before his congregation 
with such a simple statement of truth. Only the great 
can be simple in expression and at the same time have 
length and breadth and depth in their utterances. We 
think of a learned discourse as one that proceeds on the 
sesquipedalian plane, with technical language and high- 
sounding phrases. It must enter the domain of meta- 
physics and deal liberally in “the psychology of the 
group” and “resident forces.”’ It must quote frequently 
from Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Ovid, Sophocles, Vir- 
gil, Tacitus, and then come on to the patristic fathers 
and the School-men and Reformers, with a sufficient 
flavor of technical scientific terms to give the appear- 
ance of wide reading and deep thinking. If he does 
these and kindred other similar things to conceal his 
ignorance, the speaker will be sure to win a swivel- 
headed approval, even though not one single noble im- 
pulse has been awakened and not one intelligent purpose 


103 


104 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


developed in any one of his hearers. The Carpenter 
could be profoundly simple. He was Himself the em- 
bodiment of all truth, and knew how to present it. A 
striking feature of all the discourses of Jesus Christ is 
their definiteness; their directness; their applicability 
to the common needs of the common people. There is 
a universality about the truth He taught giving His 
utterances perennial freshness. Of all the discourses 
of the Carpenter none surpasses the Good Shepherd in 
attractiveness and comprehensiveness. A child reads it 
with open-eyed wonder, while the most learned man 
revels in its inspirations and illuminations. 

It begins like the prelude of a beautiful Oratorio. It 
is sweet and soothing, but it moves on in stirring notes, 
surprises and soul-thrilling variations. There are the 
thunders of condemnation, then the lute-like melodies 
of a lullaby; then, again, the piercing voice of warning 
in the piccolo. Our eyes rest on running brooks and 
well-watered plains. We see green pastures and flow- 
ing fountains, rugged mountain-sides and deep cafi- 
yons. ‘The approaching wolf and the masked lion 
appear. But foremost is the Good Shepherd in all the 
benignity, the courage, the tenderness of His being, 
caring for His sheep. 

The imagery and symbolism are kaleidoscopic. The 
figures change, but the outstanding truth is never lost. 
After we have viewed the various scenes, after we 
have listened to the sweet or soul-stirring music, we 
have one thought indelibly stamped on mind and heart; 
namely, that we are under a Divinely protecting care — 
and are safe. 


THE GOOD SHEPHERD 105 


The Carpenter used the language that would most 
forcibly present to His Comrades Himself. He was 
the message He wished to give. Hence it was the ideal 
discourse. That is the ideal address or sermon that suc- 
ceeds in leaving the impression that Comradeship with 
the Carpenter is the greatest thing in the world and that 
it is possible for everybody today. It matters little 
whether or not a single sentence can be quoted from the 
sermon, provided Jesus Christ has been unveiled. The 
eminent traditionalists had taken exception to the teach- 
ing of Jesus, because He had not been ordained. But 
He had. He had received His ordination from Heaven. 
There are thousands of men today who have had a far 
higher endorsement than any Council or Presbytery 
could possibly give, and yet who are refused recognition 
because they have not the tag of some school attached 
to them. This is not to say that a scholastic training 
with Divine ordination is not eminently desirable. It 
is, but it is not all, nor even of highest importance. 

The first figure employed by Jesus is the sheepfold. 
In a country pastoral in character, subject to the 1n- 
vasion of hordes of aliens and organized bands of ruf- 
fians and infested with wild beasts, the sheepfold was 
immensely important. It represented security for the 
sheep. In a world infested with robbers and swindlers, 
and where the rapaciousness of invisible hosts of evil 
is a constant menace, a place of protection and personal 
provision is also of primary significance. The sheep- 
fold must be well builded and inaccessible to any save 
the Shepherd. “ He that entereth in by the door is the 
shepherd of the sheep. He that climbeth up some other 


106 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER © 


way the same is a thief and a robber.” ‘The Porter is 
God Almighty. The Good Shepherd is Jesus Christ. 
The door is first of all the appointed way of salvation, 
then it is the way into the sheepfold, for the sheep. In 
the word “climbeth” we find a stirring suggestion of 
the determined effort ever made to gain self-appointed 
leadership. Why this constant effort to find some other 
way of salvation than that provided by Jesus which is 
so accessible and so satisfying? What tremendous ex- 
ertion men are making to throw aside the true way and 
try some new way of safety and life! Atheism and 
infidelity work overtime to destroy faith in the one and 
only Door. Trying to scale the battlements of glory is 
so stupid, when the door is wide open and so easy of 
entrance. The natural way is, after all, the super- 
natural way. ‘The difficulties of unbelief are vastly 
greater than the difficulties of belief. It requires an 
immense amount of credulity to explain away the Bible, 
but only common sense to receive it and apply it. Un- 
belief always raises a thousand times more questions 
than does belief, and unbelief cannot answer its own 
questions. 

The Carpenter declared Himself the appointed Shep- 
herd, to whom all might come for shelter and safety. 
To make the relation between Himself and His com- 
rades the closer, He said: “‘ He calleth his own sheep 
by name and leadeth them out.” It was as though He 
said: “I will guard over the lives and the well-being of 
My comrades. I know your names, and we will walk. 
in that intimacy of fellowship whereby you can per- 
sonally realize that you are individually the objects of 


THE GOOD SHEPHERD 107 


my care.” What could be more comforting than this 
definiteness of interest the Carpenter-Christ has in His 
Comrades along life’s way? Embattled and storm- 
bound pilgrims along life’s highway are never without 
the watch-care of the Great Comrade. Those who talk 
glibly of wholesale Redemption through a social gospel 
would do well to study this declaration of the Master. 
Dr. Horace Bushnell uttered great truth in small com- 
pass when he said: ‘‘ The soul of reformation is the 
reformation of the soul.’”’ One by one, is God’s way. 
It works. Society is saved collectively by being saved 
individually. “He leadeth them out.” There is no 
safe guidance except Divine guidance. Too many are 
following blind guides who have never even sought the 
greater leadership of the Good Shepherd. When we 
enter into the subtle things of the spirit, where we are 
dealing with ultimate realities, what human wisdom 
can be trusted? When Eternal Life is at stake let no 
one speak to me who is not under the guidance of 
Christ through comradeship. When the pulses feebly 
beat and the lights are dimming we want some one who 
has the ear of God, to comfort and prepare us. 

We have not fully appreciated Comradeship with the 
Carpenter, until we have heard Him calling us by name. 
His messages bear the substitution of our own name in 
all the promises and pledges He gives. “I will call you 
by name; I will lead you out.” Out of the mazes, the 
miasmic swamps, the dangerous pitfalls, the evil con- 
spiracies, the jungles of evil beasts of prey; out of fear, 
weakness, failure; into peace and happiness and prog- 
ress and largeness and liberty and loveliness! The 


108 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


suggestion is of intensity and extensity. Breadth, 
height, depth, greatness. 

The application of the parable is the important mat- 
ter. The Carpenter spoke in parables because they 
could be easily applied by those who were sympathetic 
and they could be so interpreted by Himself to His ene- 
mies, that they could not assail Him. Even the haters 
of Jesus were not worried, and did not interfere, so 
long as He spoke in parables. People like to be lulled 
to rest. A parable can be listened to with complacency, 
because one need not apply it to himself in any un- 
favorable way. Shooting arrows skyward frightens no 
one. Artillery turned upon the open sea will-not dis- 
turb the enemy. Party leaders understand that, and so 
political platforms are couched in language that can be 
variously interpreted. Great issues are avoided or dealt 
with gingerly. A good deal of Christian doctrine is 
handled in the same way. -Phraseology is used that 
may satisfy Evangelical or Unitarian. As long as men 
proceed on broad generalities, no one will be antagon- 
ized. But what is the use of marking time in that 
way? All error and evil ask is to be let alone. They 


are always crying “‘ Peace, Peace,” but all the time pre- 


venting peace by undermining truth. No man is worth 
crucifying whose heart is not aflame and whose words 
do not sometimes become scimiters. That is why most 
public speakers are not disturbed. They are not worth 
fighting. They do not say anything, they simply 
talk. Well rounded rhetorical periods concerning the 
“ Magna Charta’’ of some dead nation permit the de- 
bauchee and the libertine to sleep quietly in the pew. 


— 


THE GOOD SHEPHERD 109 


The gambler and the drunkard are not aroused by 
rhetoric. It is astonishing how quiet people will be, 
under a vehement attack on the Jews! Men who all the 
week have been guilty of betraying their Lord by vio- 
lating every covenant they have ever taken do not even 
wince when the minister excoriates Judas for his in- 
famous betrayal of Christ. Men who have taken the 
last pound of flesh, through mortgage foreclosure, and 
have transferred another’s wealth to their own pockets, 
do not bat an eye when, with intense vividness, the 
scene is laid in Venice and Shakespeare’s Shylock is 
hammered. As long as benevolences in general are 
dealt with, and no appeal for money is made, all goes 
well, but let the withering truth be personally applied, 
then it is different. When denunciations of immorality 
and parsimony and infidelity and dishonesty are made 
to strike home, the question will be raised whether or 
not a more ‘‘ A‘sthetic minister whose ideas are in ac- 
cord with the times” is not better suited to “ our ad- 
vanced people.” ‘There is a call then for more culture 
and less Christ. David could exhibit a wonderful pas- 
sion for justice until Nathan pointed his finger at him 
and said: ‘Thou art the man.” He had then one of 
two courses open; behead the prophet or repent. To 
many, beheading is the less difficult. The very business 
of truth is to unmask error. Some one must turn on 
the searchlight, or the wold goes down in a maelstrom 
of unbelief and uncleanness. The supreme office of 
love is to burn its way through the veneer, the 
paint and the varnish, externalities of every kind, 
and show what lies back of all profession. Our mod- 


110 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


ern dilletantism enjoys a lukewarm applause and a tepid 
approbation. 

The Carpenter was the personification of kindness. 
He knew that the world can be drawn but not driven to 
the higher life. But He knew as well that just as long 
as sin is masked it will never be feared and will never 
be eliminated. When, however, He wanted to reveal — 
the attractiveness of Comradeship with Himself, He 
represented Himself as tenderly solicitous for and un- 
changeably devoted to the interests of His Comrades. 
He did not shrink from commonplace comparisons. 
“T am the door.” Now He is on dangerous ground. 
He is making application of the parable. Profession is 
costly. When a person is willing to identify himself 
with some great principle he will make enemies. Stand 
in the midst of any concourse of people and proclaim 
yourself a Comrade of the Carpenter, with all that im- 
plies, and you will be known then to be opposed to 
every form of deviltry that is disgracing your home 
town, and you will be opposed. Knitted brows and up- 
turned lip of scorn will greet your advocacy of some 
important reform. More than that, if you stand as a 
true Comrade of the Carpenter long enough, and fulfil 
your duty, there will be those who will enter into a con- 
spiracy, and will determine upon your financial, your 
social, your moral crucifixion. 

That was just what happened when the Carpenter 
said: “I am the Good Shepherd.” When He began to— 
talk about “thieves and robbers,” the cross stood out 
clear-cut in the horizon. The Carpenter understood 
just what He was hazarding, for before He finished the 


THE GOOD SHEPHERD 1 By 


discourse He told what would be the outcome. He 
dared declare that He and He alone could save man- 
kind. “ By me if any man shall enter in, he shall be 
saved.” ‘That is a tremendous word. What is it to be 
saved? The shipwrecked mariner knows what it 
means, when he has been delivered from an angry sea 
and is at last safe on the shore. The sick man who 
has been down in the shadows and through the skill 
of man and the help of the Great Comrade has been 
led back to health, he knows what ‘‘ saved” means. 
The condemned man appointed for execution at sun- 
rise and listening for the footfall of the officer who 
is to lead him to execution, but who receives a par- 
don at the last moment, he knows what “ saved” 
means. But none of these know, as does one who has 
_heard the invitation of the Carpenter to sacred Com- 
radeship and has entered into sweet fellowship by 
the 4 Door’ 

Once more the Carpenter speaks. “He shall go in 
and out and find pasture.’ All the yearnings of the 
soul represented by hunger, satisfied! ‘This is the 
promise. Intellectual aspirations for truth, emotional 
awakenings calling for peace, spiritual outreach, all, all 
satisfied. Sustenance in order to vigor, that is the 
thought. Ask the great men of the past two thousand 
years what “ pasture”? means. Ask the church fathers, 
the Reformers, the statesmen. Ask Gladstone, John 
Bright, Washington, Lincoln, Garfield, to whom they 
were most indebted. Ask the really great leaders of 
thought today where they look for mental, moral and 
- spiritual food that builds character. They will all an- 


112 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


swer in a chorus: “ To the Carpenter-Christ, whose 
comrades we have been through the years.” 

As the final expression of love, the last word that 
can be spoken in His call for Comradeship, hear Him 
say: “I lay down my life for the sheep.” That is what 
it cost to open the way for Comradeship with the Car- 
penter. This is the full measure of devotion. He has 
given it. Tenderness, gentleness, watchfulness, kindli- 
ness, goodness, patience, unfailing devotion, these are 
the characteristics of the Good Shepherd, the Carpenter- 
Christ, the Great Comrade of all who answer the royal 
invitation: ‘Come unto me.” ‘To be His Comrade is 
vastly more than to believe He was born in Bethlehem, - 
lived in Nazareth and died on the Cross. It is to walk 
daily with Him in the home, on the street, through all 
the common daily experiences of life as the Great 
Companion. His saviourhood must become a reality 
through submission to His will. Substitutes all fail. 
Pharisaic pride and Sadducaic unbelief leave a great 
aching void in the heart. Equally futile are the ma- 
terialism and agnosticism and rationalism and panthe- 
ism and atheism of our day. ‘They meet no deep 
heart-need and answer no yearning heart call. Com- 
radeship with the Carpenter is the greatest fact of this 
moment. The splendid consummation will be realized 
when the people of all nations, kindreds and tongues 
who are in fellowship with the Great Comrade shall be 
united under one Headship and crown Him King of 
kings and Lord of lords; and He will rule from the 
rivers unto the ends of the earth, and “ There shall be 
one fold and one shepherd.’” 


Xx 


THE COMPULSIONS OF REDEMPTIVE 
LOVE 


THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “The Son of Man must 
suffer many things... and be slain, and be raised the third 
day.” —LukE 9: 22, 


You can break with God, bt you cannot escape 
Him. You may cauterize conscience, but you will not 
be able to destroy it. You may paralyze your moral 
sensibilities, but experiences will sensitize them again. 
Truth can be stifled and strangled, but never de- 
stroyed. You may bow justice out of the door, but 
you can never weaken its rights and its powers. De- 
stroying sin does not diminish its deadliness. A broken 
mirror will not beautify a plain face. The barrier may 
drive the stream to cover, but sooner or later it will 
push out again into the open. You may forget God’s 
Book, but you cannot change the inexorableness of the 
laws therein. Changing the label does not make poison 
pure. The flags, the band and the painted decks, give 
no safety to a ship with decayed timbers. <A rejected 
religion loses none of its rights through dismissal. The 
laws of health may be broken, but the end is feebleness 
and failure. Opinions of men alter no purposes of 
God. Hidden reefs refuse to recede simply because the 
captain is indifferent or defiant. We are creatures and 
not creators. Defiance of God’s will writes its own 


113 


114 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


doom. The triumphs of evil are quickly changed to 
the terror of defeat. The capitalists of Gadara who 
asked Christ to depart after losing the herd of swine 
impoverished themselves when most they thought to 
increase their riches. When Christ leaves, judgment 
remains. ‘The heart of man is never satisfied with any 
material acquisition. No man is so rich in fortune or 
fame that he does not need Comradeship with the Car- 
penter. Historians, true to truth, shadow the crowns 
of kings and wreathes of heroes with stories of little- 
ness, weakness, and meanness, revealing how impos- 
sible it is for unaided human nature to reach any noble 
ideal. Material acquisitions which cost the dismissal of 
Christ, carry their own penalty. We must meet our 
yesterdays. But how? Only the Cross answers the 
question how we may meet our yesterdays without 
dread. Sin must be dealt with adequately. It definitely 
separates man from God. It must be eliminated. God 
does that very thing through His Son. 

Given a lost world and a pitying God, a saving pro- 
vision and process inevitably follows. A world to be 
lifted, what leverage is adequate? A usurper en- 
throned, how can he be unseated and the sceptre of the 
Eternal King recognized? A world engulfed and cor- 
rupted, how can it be purified? A world enslaved, 
whence and how is liberty to be experienced? Discord 
and discontent, how attune the unstrung harp to 
celestial pitch and produce divine melody? A world 
sick in sin, where is the physician who can heal? Dis- 
couragement, despondency, whence is lasting hope? 
What transforming energy can operate to irrigate a 


REDEMPTIVE LOVE 115 


desert and produce from a wilderness a garden of 
beauty? Is it possible to convert weakness into 
strength, sorrow into joy, despair into delight, guilt to 
innocency? Nature converts clay into opal, black car- 
bon into diamonds; why then cannot God effect the 
greater heart transformation? 

This was the Carpenter’s problem. The image of 
God was lost through transgression, but not the con- 
sciousness of God and duty. A universal belief in a 
Supreme Being is scarcely open to question. A uni- 
versal sense of dependence and need is a patent fact. A 
universal consciousness of guilt is perfectly evident 
from a universal, sacrificial effort to gain relief. Added 
to these is the fact that there is a universal aspiration, 
though sometimes feebly manifested, to gain divine 
recognition and approval. All these things give confi- 
dence that man can be approached successfully and 
ultimately saved. 

There are many influences tending to neutralize and 
nullify man’s outreach for God and truth. The battle 
for existence is fierce, persistent and absorbing. Whip 
and spur drive the flagging energies. Ensnaring plea- 
sures exert even a more deleterious influence. Myriad 
voices sing their siren song. ‘The sweet note of truth 
is lost. A thousand sensuous delights offer themselves 
and plead for recognition. Selfishness asserts itself and 
blights the brightest bud of promise. Self-indulgence 
leads to auto-intoxication, then to paralysis, and finally 
to death. 

Into these conditions and facing these problems, came 
the Carpenter. Salvation must be a fact, or creation a 


116 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


failure. The problem was God’s. No other could an- 
swer it. The most striking feature of the teaching, 
doing and dying of Christ is its inexorableness and in- 
evitableness. With the steadiness with which the needle 
holds to the pole-star, the Carpenter moved to the 
Cross. There were no aberrations, no temporary de- 
partures, no derelictions. He was clearly under an 
inner control. A review of that matchless life leaves 
no room to doubt the fullest freedom of action, together 
with unquestioning compulsion, His first public utter- 
ance was made while yet a child: “ Wist ye not that I 
must be about my Father’s business?’ In His public 
ministry the suggestion of an inner urge appears: “ The 
Son of Man must suffer many things.” “I must preach 
the kingdom.” “I must walk today.” ‘The Son of 
Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men.” 
“T must work the works of him that sent me.” 

Here we have the explanation of the constant impera- 
tive in the teaching, doing and dying, the Resurrection 
and Ascension of Jesus Christ. 

The Cross of Jesus is the central core of Christian- 
ity. It was there redemptive love found its largest and 
its final expression. ‘There is no incentive to repen- 
tance, sacrificial devotion, complete consecration, com- 
parable in cogency with the redemptive love of God 
expressed in the sacrifice of Jesus for the sins of the 
world. ‘The Carpenter could never have gained Com-— 
rades save through the call of the Cross. Loving sacri- 
fice makes an irresistible appeal. It comes weighted 
with a father’s pity and a mother’s tenderness. Re- 
demptive love opens the holy of holies in the heart of 


REDEMPTIVE LOVE 117 


God to every child of humanity. It offers pardon 
and peace for which it furnishes a rational basis. 
No arbitrary decree of forgiveness could give peace 
to a guilt-burdened soul. Before a sinful man can 
have fellowship with God, unholiness must be 
changed to holiness. The gateway through which 
man must pass first is the gateway of repentance. 
Every selfish instinct opposes it. Pride rebels against 
it. Man will break before he will bend. Appetites 
and tendencies of the natural heart rebel against it. 
Only Redemptive Love can melt down the icy cita- 
del of self-satisfaction and admit the King of Glory. 
The sunshine is more effective in destroying a cita- 
del of ice than a modern battery would be. Re- 
generating grace is simply a deposit of redemptive 
love in the human heart to transform and unfold 
it. Christianity is distinctively re-creative. It stands 
in bold contrast with self-repair. It is thoroughly 
revolutionary. 

The change from a life of simple self-indulgence to 
one of self-abnegation and righteousness is unspeak- 
ably great. It means conflict; war to the death; un- 
compromising engagement to supplant evil with good. 
Life is governed by its adopted ideals. Christianity’s 
conception of success is unique. The Carpenter taught 
His comrades that they must surrender in order to con- 
quer, lose in order to win, die in order to live. But 
ideals are tantalizing and disappointing unless we have 
power to realize them. Precisely this is what the Car- 
penter imparts to His comrades. This is one of the 
unique features of Christianity. The Christian ideal 


118 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


carries within itself a divine potency. Ideals fix 
eternity. 

The task presented to the comrades of the Carpenter 
is a sublime one. The redemptive compulsion must 
have its counterpart in the Comrades of Christ, in 
working out salvation. The cogent motive in all spiri- 
tual activity is the glory of God and personal perfection. 
The credential of the Christian is service and sacrifice. 
A life whose motive and method are restorational, fur- 
nishes absolute proof of the sincerity of its profession. 
Only comradeship with Christ will insure an adequate 
dynamic in the individual Christian. Christianity is a 
religion of activity and achievement. It has been wisely 
said: “ Christ found religion a rite, and He made it a 
passion.” Redemptive love is the one irresistible dyna- 
mic on this planet. This explains the unapproachable 
superiority of the religion of Jesus. Thor, the god of 
the Norsemen, had his hammer. Jupiter his thunder- 
bolt, Vulcan his forge, but Jesus came with a new 
weapon. The only sword He ever unsheathed was the 
sword of Redemptive Love. With this He proposed 
for Himself world-wide imperialism. He dared to 
prophesy universal dominion. With an optimism au- 
dacious as it was sublime, He predicted the capture of 
a world that hated Him. After His death, when the 
great Cause was in the shadow of temporary eclipse, 
His Comrades, filled with the passion of Redemptive 
Love, though thwarted in their plans, maligned and 
maltreated, yet made bold to declare: “ The stone which 
was set at nought of you builders has become the head 
of the corner.” 


REDEMPTIVE LOVE 119 


Redemptive love is the synthetic of all truth. In 
human history extremes have followed each other with 
unceasing regularity. The songs of Homer filled the 
world with the expectation of prevailing and controlling 
joy and promised a golden age of plenty. They had 
hardly died away before the dirge of A‘schylus fore- 
boded destruction and declared life not worth living. 
The Hebrew prophets made hopefulness an article of 
faith, yet with them Davidics are followed by Jere- 
miads. History repeats itself. Leibnitz beheld a world 
so beautiful that he could conceive of no better para- 
dise. Schopenhauer cynically breathes lamentations 
over the imperfections of the world and the failure of 
life. Redemptive love prevents unreasonable optimism 
and prohibits a pessimism which would paralyze the 
nerve of human effort. | 

Faith has a true rationale. It rests on reason and 
experience. The consciousness of the indwelling of 
Redemptive Love furnishes the Christian his deepest 
joy and presents the grounds of sacrificial service. The 
testimony of the Carpenter’s comrades wins the world. 
Love experienced is the basis of love expressed. The 
Carpenter was able to impart His spirit to His Com- 
rades. He does today. Comradeship has repeatedly 
meant imprisonment, obloquy, persecution, death. The 
splendid triumphs of the apostolic period finds its only 
explanation in the inner urge awakened by companion- 
ship with Christ. The martyr spirit was conspicuous. 
Progress was phenomenal. Nothing could stay the 
wheels of the redeeming chariot of God. Within three 
centuries the Comrades of the Carpenter lifted the ban- 


120 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


ner of the Cross above the Roman eagles. They com- 
pelled the standards of all nations to dip to the new 
ensign, which was “ Christ and Him crucified.” But 
temporal successes in the Church have always strangely 
led to a weakening of the compulsions of Redemptive 
Love. After the apostolic period, the spirit of sacrifice 
diminished. The Church became popular. The force of 
arms and the imposing grandeur of ecclesiastical organ- 
ization were substituted for the dynamic of redeeming 
love. A spectacular religion supplanted spiritual ser- 
vice. The decline continued for five hundred years. 
The Carpenter had lost His Comrades. The transform- 
ing power of the Church had gone. Subtle specula- 
tions and empty sophistries covered the pearls of truth. 
Casuistry obscured Christ. The discussion of arid 
themes took the place of “ Christ and Him crucified.” 

Then again came the Carpenter, and new Comrades. 
We have the Reformation. Wycliff appeared and 
undertook to arouse the inert mass which called itself a 
church. It moved just enough to crush him. Huss 
blew the bugle note of appeal for a return to Christ. 
The sweet melody was soon silenced. Luther, the 
monk of Erfurt, felt the inner stirrings of Redemptive 
Love. Under its mandate, he inaugurated the new era. 
“Every man his own priest, God approachable by all, 
the Bible its own interpreter,’ these were the watch- 
words. The wheel, the fagot and the rack were the 
arguments which were faced unflinchingly. The new 
era had begun under the compulsions of Redemptive 
Love and has continued with cumulative power up to 
the present. 


REDEMPTIVE LOVE 121 


Only Christian nations are progressive. This is true 
commercially, industrially, intellectually, ethically and 
spiritually. All conceptions of life have taken on to a 
greater or less degree a religious aspect. Art concep- 
tions have changed. The masterpieces of Rabinowitz 
and Holman Hunt owe their popularity to the fact that 
they touch a sympathetic chord in the heart of human- 
ity. Literary activity in distinctively religious lines is 
prodigious. The works today passing through the 
largest number of editions are such works as Charles 
M. Sheldon’s In His Steps. The evangelical zeal of 
today bears the stamp of a high order of intelligence. 
There is an extraordinary interest in new editions of 
the Word of God. Never were there so many men and 
women of high intellectual standing seriously studying 
the Bible. In the world of feeling, the compulsions 
of Redemptive Love are multiplying philanthropies. 
Sympathy is the watchword. The victims of tyranny 
awaken pity and reclamatory effort. Childhood is 
studied and better understood than ever before. 
Hospitals, homes, asylums indicate the practical appli- 
cation of Redeeming Love to the crying needs of the 
unfortunate. 

Christianity an expended force? What declaration 
could be more absurd! Let the comrades of the Car- 
penter waste no time in argument. The best answer 
to Goldwin Smith and Anthony Froude is the magnifi- 
cently cumulative energy of the Church today. It is 
no novel thing for cultivated minds to assail the 
Church. The Church’s answer must be her sympa- 
thetic devotion to the teachings and ideals of the Car- 


122 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


penter of Nazareth. It is noteworthy that Christian 
progress has been wholly and solely along the lines of 
evangelical Christianity. ‘The missionary work of the 
present generation has cost incalculable sacrifice, but it 
has been done cheerfully. A victorious type of piety is 
produced only when the heroic aspects of Redemptive 
Love are faithfully set forth. The Comrades of the 
Carpenter need not be unduly distressed, even though 
apostasy has reached appalling proportions. Two 
periods of atheism preceding this were virulent, abu- 
sive, and comprehended a far larger number of think- 

ing people than the present movements of infidelity. © 
There are intermittent waves of unbelief which move 
over the world like a pestilence. The activities of 
rationalistic atheism today may temporarily retard, but 
cannot permanently prevent, the advance of God’s 
Church. Deism in England, atheism in France, ration- 
alism in Germany are spent forces. Materialistic mod- 
ernism of our own time is doomed to decay and 
disappearance. We need unwearying patience. The 
utmost fidelity is demanded. Love must still be the 
commanding and controlling power. Objections of- 
fered by the enemies of Christianity can never be an- 
swered by holy maledictions. Close fellowship with a 
communicable Christ can alone develop a redemptive 
passion in the Church of God, which will produce a . 
world-wide revival. The Carpenter-Christ ts here. 
“From Edom with dyed garments from Bozrah, trav- 
eling in the greatness of His power, Mighty to Save.” 


XI 


CIVILIZING, SOCIALIZING, CHRISTIAN- 
IZING THE WORLD 


THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “ Peace, be still... and 
there was a great calm.’ “Come forth, thou unclean spirit, 
out of the man.”—Mark 4:39; 5:8. 


CREATION was accomplished without effort. Run- 
ning the natural universe demands a perpetual exercise 
of Divine power. He who created the world stayed 
with it. He never abandoned it. Should He do so, 
the result would be chaos. He who created the world 
controls it. He left room for His especial personal 
activity with the certainty of intervention whenever 
circumstances demand it. Miracle is the exceptional 
manifestation of God’s power. In the days of the Car- 
penter, He was often dealing with the tempest of 
natural elements. Crossing the Sea of Galilee on one 
occasion with His Comrades, an opportunity offered 
itself for the demonstration of His Divineness in con- 
trolling wind and wave. The short voyage across the 
sea revealed the fact that His Comrades are by no 
means rendered immune from danger and difficulty 
from the mere fact of comradeship. They were doing 
precisely what He counseled. They were diligently 
carrying out the program He prepared. It was in the 
fulfillment of duty that they found themselves im- 


123. 


124 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


periled. A boisterous wind sweeping down the heights 
from the eastern shore lashed the waters to a foam- 
ing fury. 

Probably no sheet of water presents greater contrast 
at successive intervals than the Sea of Galilee. No lake 
could be more beautifully placid than is beautiful blue 
Galilee when it ts placid. On the other hand, no body 
of water of its size is more threatening than this when 
lashed by the winds. Its waves rise almost to the 
heights of the waves of the storm-swept ocean. The 
changes are sudden and violent. On this occasion, the 
boat was beginning to sink, and the terrified company 
was amazed to discover Jesus sleeping soundly. Divine 
power was there, but for the moment it was inactive. 

Life itself is very much like that voyage. Many of 
our journeys are taken after prayerful preparation. 
Duty is clear. We are sure the Great Comrade is with 
us, but suddenly and unexpectedly tempestuous winds 
endanger our enterprise and imperil life itself. The 
sleeping Christ in the Galilee boat and the weary Christ 
at Jacob’s well show us how marvelous are God’s ways 
in furnishing a basis for a true sympathy between Him- 
self and us. How much better we understand Him 
because of this Galilee storm and its results! We know 
He understands us because, when living His human 
life, He could sleep in the face of tempest, and because 
He was weary at Jacob’s well. The Carpenter knew 
what it was both to be sleepy and to be tired. That in 
itself gives a basis of mutual fellowship. It makes His 
relationship with us both close and comforting. 


The comrades, just because they were comrades, had~ 
\ 


CHRISTIANIZING THE WORLD 125 


an available help right at hand. He quickly responded 
to their challenge. It was one which has echoed and 
re-echoed down the corridors of time to the present 
moment, ‘‘ Carest thou not that we perish?” In the 
stress of trouble, this is the immediate mental and spiri- 
tual emotion. It is a question, then, as to whether or 
not God knows and if He knows, cares. Hear His re- 
sponse. It is prompt, it is positive, it indicates a con- 
sciousness of absolute Divineness: “ Peace, be still.’ 
This command was addressed to wind and wave. 

In those words He proclaimed once and forever that 
the tides of the ocean, the winds of Heaven, the electric 
forces of the sky are under His absolute control. He 
can use them at will. “‘He maketh the clouds his 
chariot.” He rides on the wings of the wind. He can 
handle all the forces of nature with Divine ease. Does 
He do it? He certainly does, and in a larger degree 
than we are accustomed to believe or understand. 
There are Lilliputian minds, dreamers and unbelievers 
with shrivelled faith, who undertake to explain away 
the Gospel declaration, ““ The wind ceased and there 
was a great calm.” A thousand problems are raised 
whenever you try to dissolve away a supernatural fact 
through a natural explanation. It complicates matters 
tremendously to abandon the perfectly evident meaning 
of God’s Word and impose your own ideas upon events 
narrated. ‘The Comrades of the Carpenter knew what 
happened. ‘They were there. They made a record of 
it. We have the record. There is nothing startling or 
strange about it when you know the Carpenter. The 
trouble is, people who do not know Him undertake to 


126 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


interpret Him. The immediateness of the response of 
nature to the command of the Carpenter settles forever, 
in the minds of His real Comrades, the fact of His true 
Divinity. If God’s only problem consisted in success- 
fully dealing with the powers of nature, His task would 
be simple indeed. In the natural world, obedience is 
prompt, and without exception. He speaks, and it is 
done. He wills, and nothing in nature can withstand 
His will. Except for extraordinary reasons, God rules 
His world along the lines of natural law. Divine en- 
ergy is constantly operating along the lines of what 
we call law. 

But what is natural law? It is nothing more nor 
less than God’s method of doing things. There is no 
potency in law. It does nothing. Law is merely the 
channel in which the stream of Divine purpose is flow- 
ing. It is the path God travels. When conditions re- 
quire it, the author of nature steps in and takes a hand 
in its manipulation in unusual ways. He makes decla- 
ration of His purposeful presence to accomplish some 
specific thing. In the period when the Carpenter most 
peculiarly announced the presence of God, He did this 
again and again. ‘Those are the acts which we call 
miracles. They were supernatural, but perfectly na- 
tural to Him. In the stress of storm and trial in any 


sort of peril or affliction, the Comrades of the Carpen-' 


ter today are just as sure of an active response to their 
appeal for help as were His fellow-passengers in the 
Galilee boat. Nothing that is necessary or desirable 
will the Carpenter withhold from His Comrades today. 
Calm follows the appeal of faith. 


~~ 


CHRISTIANIZING THE WORLD 127 


The Galilee storm was over. What next? Another 
storm. How true to life! For the average individual 
life is a series of storms of one kind or another. No 
wonder the divinely inspired Prince and Poet cried: 
“Oh, for the wings of a dove, that I might fly away, 
and be at rest.” But this rest is not always granted in 
the way we seek it. It is better oftentimes to ride out 
the storm. It is a great thing, when the Euroclydon is 
wildest, to be able to say, with the great Apostle Paul 
to the terrified passengers upon the imperiled ship: “ Be 
of good cheer.” No man knew better than he how to 
face life’s storms. ‘The secret of his superlative opti- 
mism lay wholly in his consciousness of comradeship 
with the Carpenter. When we have finished one trial, 
we ought to be the better prepared for the next, which 
is likely to follow soon. Life is not so much imperiled 
by a stormy sea as it is by becalmed waters. 

The Galilee storm was followed by the Gadara storm. 
Here was something different. The Carpenter and His 
Comrades had reached their haven. Everything seemed 
propitious. Imagine with what awe and reverence and 
love this little group of disciples must have now looked 
upon the great Teacher! They were spellbound at the 
way in which He had spoken the storm into quiet! 
They had reached their haven, and were prepared now 
for a period of repose. Not yet; another storm. A 
man wild in appearance and wilder still in his emotions 
came rushing threateningly toward them. He uttered a 
wild cry of recognition addressed to Jesus. “ What 
have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the Most 
High God?” Dethroning demons is a most difficult 


128 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


undertaking even for God Almighty. Dealing with 
the powers of evil incarnate is vastly more difficult than 
manipulating the forces of nature. When God gave 
man free will, He entered upon a terrific experiment. 
The heart of man is the greatest battlefield in the world. 
Here are witnessed the greatest defeats and the most 
magnificent victories that are anywhere experienced. 
The roar of cannon and the clashing of sabres is not to 
be compared with the invisible contentions where man 
rises to his greatest heights or falls to his lowest depth. 
Light and darkness are forever in contention. Good 
and evil stand with drawn swords or rush into combat 
with clashing sabres. The stake is tremendous. It is 
nothing less than eternal life or eternal death. The 
rightful ruler of the soul of man is his Creator, but a 
usurper is always near at hand to take possession of an 
unguarded throne. 

Demoniacal influence need not be doubted. It is a 
reality even today. Whenever the powers of evil. are 
in the ascendent it is, in a very real sense, demoniacal 
possession. Something is dragging man down. He 
has to fight to keep his feet. When you see a bather 
disappear in the surf, you have no doubt about the fact 
of the undertow. When you see men and women 
morally going down, you cannot doubt that some force 
is gripping them to destroy. It must be evident to any 
observer that man, unaided, is not able to cope with the 
deadly influences which seek to destroy him. If he 
could do so, he would. ‘There are noble impulses in 
every human life. It is very important to appreciate 
that the most marred life has still the remnants of roy- 


CHRISTIANIZING THE WORLD 129 


alty. When overpowered by evil, faith in the essential 
dignity of human nature, together with faith in the love 
and purpose of God, leads us to believe in the saveable- 
ness of every soul. 

The freedom which God gave to man is, after all, a 
limited freedom. In view of the insistence of evil in its 
effort to gain control of the human heart, liberty itself 
is confined to a choice of masters. Evil or good will 
be in the ascendent in the direct force of life. A de- 
cision not to choose God is in effect to choose evil. The 
citadel of the soul is never bombarded by the Infinite. 
God accepts no sceptre which is not voluntarily prof- 
fered. Indeed, constituted as He is, He could not if 
He would. When He is not in control, Satanic forces 
surely are. This may not be very apparent, yet it is 
real. When life is evidently dominated by unholy in- 
fluences we say, and very properly, that such an one is 
possessed of the devil. We need not be timid, nor need 
we shrink too much from using terms that best and 
most definitely describe conditions, 

The Carpenter was always facing the problem of get- 
ting evil out of the human heart and getting good in. 
During the two and one-half years of His public min- 
istry, He was almost always in the storm zone. The 
storm which confronted Him, represented in the de- 
moniac, was fierce indeed. “Straightway there met 
him, out of the tombs, a man with an unclean spirit.” 
It is the nature of evil that it is first of all unclean. The 
defiling influence of sin is appalling. It mars, it black- 
ens, it pollutes, it degrades, it destroys. This demoniac 
afforded an opportunity for Jesus Christ to assert once 


130 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


and forever His power over incarnate evil. Only by 
the enthronement of Himself, which must be with 
human consent, can the usurper be prevented from re- 
turning and taking control. It is doubtless true that 
demoniacal possession had peculiar and special features 
at this particular time, when the achievement of salva- 
tion for humanity was arousing the powers of darkness 
to their utmost fury. The man with whom He now 
had to deal is described as wild, uncontrollable and a 
constant menace to society. It is in the nature of wick- 
edness to dissocialize the individual. It makes of the 
individual an outlaw, gradually, nevertheless really. 
Enough of such people can threaten the very existence 
of organized governments, which can never be main- 
tained save through the righteous purpose of a major- 
ity to protect the interests of all. This man was living 
among the tombs. He was an anarchist. He was the 
enemy of his fellow-men. His presence was a menace 
to the entire community. He was opposed to law en- 
forcement. He did not believe in constitutions. He 
was against a government, no matter what that govern- 
ment was. His continuous theme was personal liberty. 
Wild as he was, he waxed eloquent when talking about 
individual rights. He had become so imbued with his 
opposition to government that ordinary restraints were 
unavailing. 

How better could lawlessness be described than thus 
personalized? ‘The crime wave of today is only a vio- 
lent demonstration of dissocialized men, who are bent 
on the overthrow of the moral and social order. This 
thing has its extreme expression in personal violence. 


CHRISTIANIZING THE WORLD 131 


Whenever each man is bent on satisfying his own appe- 
tites, gratifying his own desires regardless of the in- 
terests of his fellow-men, he has become dissocialized 
and thoroughly anarchistic. Every form of evil has to 
a greater or less degree these same characteristics. 
Anarchy is only incarnate evil, breaking down re- 
straints, tearing asunder chains—only, instead of being 
chains forged with steel, they are in the nature of 
proper restrictions upon the lawless, necessary to make 
communities safe. Civilization represents a sufficient 
enthronement of righteousness, justice, goodness, to in- 
sure a voluntary limitation of individualism and a full 
cooperation for the prevention of violence at the hands 
of the lawless and vicious. 

The effect of the Carpenter upon evil was immedi- 
ate and positive. Wherever He appeared opposition 
was violent. Unrighteousness hates righteousness. 
Nothing is so irritating to unholiness as holiness itself. 
A revival is always the signal for an outbreak of 
vituperative abuse of Christianity. This man, domi- 
nated by the powers of darkness, knew Christ and 
hated Him. The evil spirit within him engaged in a 
sort of worship, but it was a loveless worship. The 
prayer uttered was an importuning, agonizing request 
to be let alone. Evil asks no assistance, it only asks to 
be left to itself. That is precisely why it is not always 
enough to proclaim truth, it is sometimes necessary to 
attack evil. Worship which is devoid of love possesses 
no quality which commends the suppliant to God. A 
selfish prayer receives no acknowledgment or response 
from the Almighty. 


132 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


In answer to the inquiry, “ What is thy name?” the 
demoniac answered: “ My name is Legion, for we are 
many.” The resources of iniquity are tremendous. 
You never know how many or how great are the in- 
visible powers of darkness in any community, where 
law-defiers are combining to prevent their own over- 
throw and to insure continuance in their iniquitous 
work. One of the most disheartening features in all 
moral reform work lies in the many-sidedness and the 
almost limitless resources of incarnate iniquity. An- 
other discouragement is found in the timidity and hesi- 
tancy of those who claim to love truth and goodness 
but who are unwilling to come out in the open and face 
the Gadarene demoniac. What the organized forces of 
society could not do in that particular community, Jesus 
promptly did. He and He alone can still the tempests 
of the mind and heart. He and He alone can dethrone 
demons and completely reconstruct character. This He 
does by personally taking complete possession of a life, 
driving forth entrenched evil and enthroning Himself. 
The first essential to a reconstructed character is not 
simply a resolution to overcome and conquer some evil 
power of the soul, but to avail oneself of Divine Power. 
Indeed, the resolution to realize righteousness must 
carry with it an invitation to Christ Himself to evict 
the usurper and take possession of the throne. 

When this is done the storm elements of life give 
place to calm and constructive experiences. A restora- 
tion to normalcy carries with it immediately a constant 
comradeship with the Carpenter. Sinfulness is ab- 
normal. Unbelief is not the normal condition of the 


\ 


CHRISTIANIZING THE WORLD 133 


soul. The normal condition of a life created in the 
image of God is one of sympathetic relations and true 
fellowship with God Himself. The results of that 
Divine exorcism which overthrows evil in the soul 
could not be more perfectly stated than in the descrip- 
tion of the demoniac of Gadara after the evil spirit had 
been ejected. ‘This is the record: “ And they came to 
Jesus and behold him that was possessed of demons, 
sitting, clothed and in his right mind.” In these three 
facts we have presented the inevitable effect of Com- 
radeship with Christ. “Sitting” is a description of 
complete self-command. It is an attitude of self-repose 
in which self-control is a predominant quality. It is 
the attitude of royalty, dignified, masterful, contented, 
commanding. This is precisely what Christianity does 
to the individual life. It takes away restlessness, peace- 
lessness, the spirit of rebellion, anarchistic indepen- 
dence, and it produces the regal qualities of composure, 
a sense of adequate ability, a spirit of cooperation and 
willing obedience to law. Before this man had become 
a Comrade of the Carpenter he was rushing restlessly 
here and there, endangering those with whom he came 
in contact, without self-command, dominated and di- 
rected by the evil within him. 

It is also recorded that he was found “ clothed.” 
This is one of the distinctively civilizing evidences. It 
suggests the discrimination between evil and good. It 
expresses a sense of refinement and delicacy, always a 
mark of civilization. Far greater than outward apparel 
of course is the importance of what this word suggests 
with reference to the soul; namely, the garment of 


134 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


righteousness which is by faith. In Paul’s great doc- 
trine of justification by faith, he directs attention to the 
fact that only the robe of righteousness proffered the 
disciple by Jesus Himself prepares one for the presence 
of God. Jesus likens the new qualities of character 
which come from obedience to His will and appropri- 
ated by faith, to a wedding garment which admits the 
guest to the feast. 

Civilizing processes are often attended with revolu- 
tionary experiences. The demoniac was torn before he 
was tranquilized. Men do not readily give up customs 
and practices, which, however barbaric, have long been 
practiced. Christian civilization is an enemy to every 
form of unrighteousness. No civilization reaches a 
very high altitude until it has felt the transforming 
touch and the imperial edict of the Carpenter. When 
Jesus spoke the word of exorcism, “‘ Come out of him, 
thou unclean spirit,” this man was at once socialized. 
Legislate as we may, increase the severity of punish- 
ment as we will, our civilization will still be menaced 
by vicious men until the commanding, the controlling 
word of Christ meets with full response. The same 
thing is true internationally. ‘The spirit of war is 
demoniacal, and the champions of militarism seem to 


fail to recognize that there are no chains which can bind 


the war demon. Christianity is the one and only hope 
of realizing a warless world. 

It is definitely related that in response to the ex- 
pressed power of the Carpenter this man was restored 
to sanity. He immediately sought to become a Com- 
rade of the Carpenter. He had found true mental bal- 


\ 


ee 


CHRISTIANIZING THE WORLD 135 


ance. What is it to be in one’s right mind if not to 
seek the companionship of Jesus Christ, and the devel- 
opment of those qualities so manifest in His life? A 
person is mentally unbalanced until regenerated. Un- 
forgiven sin makes one incompetent to pronounce fair 
judgment, and incapable of correct discriminations. 
He sees, but he does not see things in their right rela- 
tion. Christian mentality is the highest form of men- 
tality. Intellectualism which is proud of itself and 
ignores Christ is neither high nor deep nor broad. 
Thinking God’s thoughts after Him gives a power of 
discernment which is secured in no other way. Mental 
stabilization is a product of Comradeship with the 
Carpenter. 

As might be expected, Christ’s act of dethroning evil 
brought about an immediate collision between Him and 
the swine-herders. It was violent. They besought 
Him to depart out of their coasts, because He had per- 
mitted the evil spirits to enter the swine—where, in 
fact, they more properly belonged—and the entire herd 
had rushed over the precipice into the sea. The capi- 
talists of Gadara were much more concerned about 
swine than in salvation. The saving of the man was 
nothing to them as compared to their losses. They 
besought Him to depart, and wanted Him to go at 
once. When you touch either purse or pleasure, look 
out for trouble. 

Right here is the secret of the present-day difficulty 
in law enforcement. The liquor problem would present 
no great difficulty were it not for the purse passion and 
the pleasure passion. It is not a question of personal 


136 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


liberty; it is a question of personal license. The men 
who asked Christ to depart have had many descendants. 
The Carpenter takes men at their word. When He is 
told that Comradeship with Him is not desired, and 
He is asked to leave, He departs. There is no petition 
which invites poverty like the petition which requests 
Christ to go away. 

The Carpenter once and for all made plain that the 
felicity of Comradeship with Himself is of secondary 
importance. Christianity must be a force, rather than 
a felicity, though it should be both. The man who had 
been restored and saved was naturally exultant and 
appreciative. Jesus made clear to him that his first 
thought should be service rather than mere satisfaction. 
He was told to go and tell his friends and neighbors 
what great things the Lord had done for him. This 
required courage, but it was the imperative condition 
of a continuation of the very happiness he was experi- 
encing. Fearlessness, aggressiveness and enthusiasm 
in witness-bearing is necessary to the growth of Chris- 
tianity. Comrades of the Carpenter must not only be 
confessors, but witnesses to the blessedness of com- 
radeship. It is through testimony that the cause of 
Christ is to triumph. The Christian Church has as one 
of its superb tasks the socialization of society. There 
is only one method whereby this can be accomplished ; 
that is, by Christianizing governments and ethicalizing 
all the inter-relations of men. 

When the individual members of society fulfil all 
that is represented in this picture of the enthronement 
of Jesus Christ: “sitting, clothed, and in his right™ 


CHRISTIANIZING THE WORLD 137 


mind,’ the world will become a world of beauty and 
blessedness. What a world this would be if right and 
truth and goodness were in control! Instead of the 
wail of sorrow, a song of joy. Instead of tears, love 
and laughter; instead of anguish, exhilarant happiness ; 
instead of broken covenants, loyalty, with good-will 
and good cheer. No sleepless nights, dreading the 
morning’s revelations. Instead of cruelty, caresses; 
instead of envy and jealousy, applause and cooperation. 
Work without weariness; hope with no disappoint- 
ments; gloom lost in glory; society bound together with 
the cords of sympathy. Then would swords be beaten 
into ploughshares and spears into pruning-hooks. 
Evil would be overcome with good. Chaos would be 
changed to order; discord to harmony; dirges to David- 
ics; trial to triumph. Only the wave-stilling, demoniac- 
dethroning, death-mastering Carpenter-Christ, together 
with His courageous Comrades, can ever make life 
worth living for the multitudes who mourn, and who 
suffer from the iron heel of cruelty and hate. He it is 
who can change desert wastes to gardens of beauty, and 
make soul-filling joy a reality in every life. 


XII 


THUNDER, AN ANGEL OR THE VOICE 
OF GOD? 


THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “ Father, save me from 
this hour. But for this cause came I unto this hour. Father, 
glorify thy name.’—JoHN 12: 27-28. 


Her was the Carpenter. Was He more? How much 
more? ‘The agelong question. Get the setting. The 
occasion was the Jewish Passover. ‘The Carpenter 
knew a price was on His head. ‘The inner urge was 
irresistible. He went to the feast. To a great soul, 
danger is no deterrent to duty. That explains martyr- 
doms. ‘That explains human progress. Bethany first. 
Beautiful, hospitable, soul-cheering Bethany! Here 
comradeship found its fullest expression. Mutual un- 
derstanding and good will constitute the basis for joy 
at its fullest. Life is made up of lights and shadows. 
The cheer of the lights makes possible the endurance of 
the chill of the shadows. The Carpenter gratefully 
accepted the anointing. In all human history the 
breaking of bread together has been used to strengthen 
the ties of fellowship. The supper at Bethany was the 
brief respite before the impending tragedy. Then 
came the great acclaim. Hosannah! Waving palms 
and spread garments! The coronation of the Carpen- 


ter? Not yet. Calvary first. - 


138 


a a 


THE VOICE OF GOD 139 


The feast of the passover was now on. The Car- 
penter met the challenge and was there, self-composed 
and commanding. Then the eager inquiry. Certain 
Greeks sought contact with the Carpenter: “Sir, we 
would see Jesus.” Who were they? Proselytes of the 
Gate, probably from Decapolis. Philip and Andrew 
had been their neighbors. What more natural than 
to seek introduction at the hands of old-time friends? 
To the Greeks, Jesus was a notable teacher. But more. 
How much more? Ah, that is the question of the 
centuries. Thunder, an angel, or God? They knew 
enough to want to know more. That is the beginning 
of the larger life. Desire to know is the primary 
requisite of larger truth. ‘“ Then shall ye know, if ye 
follow on to know the Lord.” 

What prompted the inquiry? Not curiosity. When 
acquaintance means contempt and perhaps much more, 
only a strong reason will lead to a request for an intro- 
duction. We like to meet people of high social stand- 
ing and who can benefit us. The Carpenter had no 
standing with the Crown, though He was in favor with 
a part of the crowd. ‘The petition was brief. That is 
a good indication. Earnestness begets brevity. When 
the house is aflame, “ Fire!” is a sufficient proclamation 
of need. We take circuitous linguistic routes when 
nothing is at stake. Prayers would be effective if con- 
sciousness of real need prompted them. Here is the 
cry of humanity’s inner voice ever since the Carpenter 
taught and lived and loved and died. “ Sir, we would 
see Jesus.” A needy world asks of the ministers of 
the Word, “ Sir, we would see Jesus.” If they get a 


140 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


stone instead of bread, the pews are empty. ‘There 
are no substitutes for Jesus. A modified, mutilated, 
watered-down message answers no deep questions of 
the soul. Only one course will attract, interest, satisfy 
and sanctify, and that is to show Christ to those who 
are asking for Him. Literature, beautiful poems, 
human opinions, sophisms, novelties—none of these 
bring any contentment. There is in the soul of man — 
enough of the Divine to call for God. The best in the 
soul is struggling to find Christ. The cry is stifled. 
The inner suppliant is beaten down, choked, starved, 
neglected, but still there is the cry: “ Sir, we would see 
Jesus.” This is the need of nations, churches, indi- 
viduals, a new discovery of the Carpenter, in order to 
closer comradeship. 

Then spake the Carpenter: He talked of being glori- 
fied. He said the chronometer had struck the hour for 
glory. How instructive the transitional hour and the 
nature of tribulation! Through toil to rest! Through 
trial to coronation! Through sorrow to joy! It is 
always thus. We should have expected Him to say: 
“The hour has come that the Son of Man must be buf- 
feted, denied, neglected, tortured, despised, betrayed.” 

The lesson emphasized to Comrades of the Carpenter 
is this: Waste no time in vain regrets. He had none. 
We have, but must dismiss them. Be not overborne by 
the present. When trying experiences are impending we 
are not to let the world close in on us. Through storm, 
through fog, through hate, through every sort of oppo- 
sition, we are to climb to life, to light, to glory. A short 
segment of the circle does not reveal the final goal. Con- 


THE VOICE OF GOD | 141 


summations reassure us. We must keep before our vis- 
ion some glimpses of the ultimate glory, in order to bear 
uncomplainingly the burden of today. What an inspira- 
tion to live in the atmosphere of glory! The Carpenter 
did, and expects His Comrades to. He did not linger 
ever in the atmosphere of His Cross and its shadows. 


“ He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater; 
He sendeth more strength when the labors increase. 
To added affliction He addeth His mercy, 
To multiplied trials His multiplied peace. 


“ His love has no limit, His grace has no measure; 
His power no boundary known unto men; 
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus 
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again.” 


“The hour has come.” Betrayal—Gethsemane— 
Cross—Tomb—Resurrection—Glory! Do you sense 
it? Can you see through? Napoleon took his army 
across the Alps. ‘They fell by the way in hundreds. 
He pressed on. Why? Italy! That is the way vic- 
tories are won by Comrades of the Carpenter. The 
student, the merchant, the mechanic, the accountant, the 
clerk, the professional man—all, all gain power through 
glimpses of the glory, ahead. The Carpenter was ever 
uttering puzzling paradoxes. Lose life, and you find 
it. Take hold by letting go, win by losing, multiply by 
dividing, live by dying. 

Which found his life by losing it—Paul, whose im- 
mortal words have been the spiritual stimulus to cou- 
rageous witnessing for nearly twenty centuries, or 
Nero, execrated even in memory? Who lives most 


142 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


today—the great emperors who employed fire and rack 
and sword to destroy Christianity, or the noble army 
of martyrs who cried in death: “ Father, glorify thy 
name’? Which lost and which saved his life—Bene- 
dict Arnold or the hero of Valley Forge? Who has 
more really found his life than Livingstone, Paton, 
Taylor and a thousand other of the noble martyr mis- 
sionaries of the Cross? Dan Crawford has just gone 
to his reward; who is there among all the most eminent 
among men of wealth and high position who can expect 
the jewelled crown of Divine favor comparable to Dan 
Crawford, who literally lost his life to glorify God and 
proclaim to a benighted people in Africa the possibility 
of Comradeship with the Carpenter? The “ Voice” 
had spoken to him and through him. God was no dis- 
tant deity to him. He walked with his Unseen Com- 
rade, and was cheered on to his splendid task by the 
consciousness that he was never alone. Among the 
men of this generation Dan Crawford stands out as 
one among ten thousand in beauty of life, self- 
effacement, self-forgetfulness and in absolute accep- 
tance of the Bible as “ This Voice.” 

Either God came in the Carpenter, or He will never 
be known. “ He that hath seen me hath seen the 
Father,” said the Carpenter. It wonderfully aids us in 
glorifying God to know that He was here in the flesh, 
passing through all the experiences of human life, save 
sin, But how necessary in the face of bitter trials and 
outrageous persecutions and cruel suffering, that we 
should know that He who bore our griefs and carried — 
our sorrows is with us today! It makes the struggle 


THE VOICE OF GOD 143 


up, less difficult. It makes service more worth while. 
Comradeship with the Carpenter-Christ develops a 
hatred of sin and a love for righteousness. 

Nothing is more demonstrably true. Who are the 
great national leaders most admired? ‘Those whose 
premotion gives them no concern, but who lose life in 
behalf of great principles and live for the people. Why 
has Congress come to such a sorry pass? Because 
with many the question of vote-getting swallows up all 
other considerations. Self-seeking, political betrayals 
of sacred trusts have been the experience of too many 
Congressmen. 

A few years ago in Tulsa, New Mexico, a successful 
lawyer dreamed of a time when he might speak out and 
let the people know conditions as they are. His wife’s 
health failed, and he was ordered to Albuquerque. He 
purchased a newspaper that had been instrumental in 
putting Albert Fall into the United States Senate. He 
began to tell the truth about how votes by thousands 
had been controlled, through control of the water-holes 
the farmers were compelled to use for their cattle and 
other live stock. One day a man stalked into his office, 
pointed to the newspaper and said: ‘“ Cut that out.” 
He replied: “ Mr. Fall, I do not understand that an 
editor can be dictated to as to how he shall run his 
paper.” ‘Cut that out, or we will cut you out,” was 
the reply. He found that five editors in succession had 
been taken to the borders of Arizona and thrown out, 
because they dared to tell the truth, What was he to 
do? He did not falter. He still told the truth. It was 
due to this same man, Carl Magee, that the warrant was 


144 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


issued at Washington for Albert Fall. He challenged 
them to find out why it was that Albert Fall had been 
able to spend three hundred thousand dollars on his 
Three Rivers Ranch, when he had told Magee he was 
dead broke at the time Magee purchased the paper. 
Here were two men, one seeking promotion, the other 
seeking to tell the truth. One saving his life, and the 
other losing it in the interests of the people. What 
followed? Every kind of persecution for Magee and 
finally, through conspiracy, a trial for libel. The trial 
was conducted in the Don country, one hundred and 
sixty miles away, where perjured witnesses could be 
obtained and where conviction regardless of justice 
would be possible. It looked hard for the man trying 
to be true to the people. He went. He was convicted 
and sentenced. 

In addition to imprisonment the judge fined him for 
contempt of court. Before leaving for Los Vegos Mr. 
Magee said to his wife: “ You have had to stand many 
things; social ostracism, sneers, and many petty indig- 
nities. The prison door is opening. Can you stand it 
for your Carl to go to prison?” Hear the answer: “I 
can stand it vastly better than I could stand it to see 
you try to escape duty.” “That settles it,” he said. 
He went. There are the two men. Which saved his 
life and which lost it? Where do they stand in the 
estimation of honest and honorable people? ‘The gov- 
ernor of New Mexico freed Magee, saying: “ This 
whole thing is a disgrace to New Mexico.” 

He that loseth his life for the Kingdom of Christ 
shall save it. The pity of it is that so few men recog- 


THE VOICE OF GOD 145 


nize the truth of the Carpenter’s words. Compromise 
kills honor. A stradler is a slacker. Popularity gained 
at the cost of integrity has only a toadstool existence. 
The Carpenter said: “Follow me.” It meant Geth- 
semane for some of them, after their Master had gone 
to His Cross. But He knew. He always knows. The 
call for service is genuine today. It is a shame for a 
man to die worth a million unless he has saved it for 
the purpose of some great cause. A man who does not 
“lose his life’ in the sense Jesus meant, by the outflow 
of mind and heart and wealth in the interests of others, 
is sure to lose his own soul. As a pool stagnates with 
no outlet so does a human heart. Keep it, and lose not 
only it but yourself. Nominal church membership is 
both detraction and subtraction. Padded church rolls 
mean a powerless church. Waters of the flowing foun- 
tain keep sweet. 

What shall our prayer be, for palliation or for 
power? Which shall we choose, the removal of trouble 
or power to endure it? Both. The Carpenter saw His 
Cross. But He said: “ What shall I say? Father, save 
me from this hour?” No, that He would not say. It 
was for that very hour He had come into the world. 
Redemption hinged on that hour. No. This was the 
prayer: “Father, glorify thy name.” Here was His 
victory. Already it was accomplished, when the de- 
cision irrevocable had coupled with it a vision of the 
Divine Glory. Then a supernatural word came: “I 
have both glorified it, and will glorify it again.” Then 
it was that: ‘‘ Some said that it thundered, others said 
an angel hath spoken unto him,” but the Carpenter said 


146 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


“This Voice.” Here is the crux of the whole matter: 
Natural or Supernatural? ‘The Bible, natural or su- 
pernatural? ‘The Carpenter Himself, natural or super- 
natural? Can everything which we call revelation be 
explained on a natural basis or not? Was the Cross 
merely a natural phenomenon? Was it thunder, an 
angel or the Voice of God, proclaiming emancipation? 
Comrades of the Carpenter are in danger of crying: 
“ Lord, take away this task,” rather than: “ Lord, make 
me equal to this task.” “He is not worthy of the 
honeycomb who shuns the hives because the bees have 
stings.” The recluse says: “ Let me get away from 
this world, with its wickedness and misery.” Com- 
rades of the Carpenter must say: ‘‘ Let me mingle with 
the poor, the needy, the down-trodden, and help them 
up.” This by no means demands that we lie supinely 
on our backs while the wheels of avarice, hatred and 
villification roll over us, unprotested and unmolested. 
Nothing of the sort is demanded. We need not seek 
heavy burdens for their own sake. ‘There is no virtue 
in penance, but much in penitence. 

What a prophet was Peter Forsyth of Hackney Col- 
lege! He said: “‘ The great battlefield of the world in 
the immediate future is that borderland between the 
natural and the supernatural. There the Church will 
gather. ‘There she will make her final determinations. 
Some will retreat and move back into naturalism. 
Others who recognize His voice, will move out and on 
into the supernatural.” Here the Church of today 
actually does stand. Some are retreating and moving 
back into the natural. Others recognize “ This Voice,” 


THE VOICE OF GOD 147 


and are standing for a supernatural religion with its 
Redemptive urge and character-making power. As 
they read the Bible, some say: “It thundered” (that 
is, it is only the work of men). Others say: “It is 
rather above the natural, yet of the same general kind.” 
Others say: “It is the Voice of God. Hear and obey.” 
The difference is as wide apart as the poles. When a 
soul has been “born from above” some say: “ It 
thundered.” That is, nothing has happened except a 
new resolve. Others know the “ Voice” has spoken 
and a deposit of Divine life has entered and the New 
Birth is a reality. ‘To the materialist and the Modern- 
ist, Regeneration is a myth. To the Supernaturalist it 
is the realest of all human experiences. To reveal to 
the world the fact of Comradeship with Christ so close 
that His life and His love have found expression anew, 
is the business of the comrades of the Carpenter. ‘The 
great heroes of the faith all proclaim it. Paul and his 
associates, the church fathers and martyrs declare it. 
The Reformers reannounce it. The missionaries of the 
cross affirm it. A communicable and communicating 
God in Christ, ever available, always sympathetic and 
always revealing Himself anew, is here. Our time calls 
for undeviating loyalty and unswerving devotion to the 
Carpenter-Christ, God’s Son, our Saviour. 

Dante said: “ Give light, and the people will find the. 
way.” Show the world “the Light of the World,” and 
the people will find the way. ‘Tell the truth about the 
Carpenter and Calvary and the people will find the 
Way. Not thunder, not an angel but the Voice Divine 
speaks in Christ: “I give unto them Eternal Life.” 


XIil 


MOUNTAIN CLIMBING WITH THE 
CARPENTER 


THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “Ye believe in God, be- 
lieve also in me.’—JouHN 14:1. 


In ALL of His discources the Carpenter stressed faith 
as the one thing indispensable to efficiency and achieve- 
ment. On the sea, when winds were contrary, He ap- 
peared to the distressed comrades, walking on the wave. 
His reassuring word, when they were frightened, was: 
“Be of good cheer; it is I.” Peter undertook to meet 
Him, walking upon the water. He failed. Why? The 
Carpenter answers the question when He says. “O 
thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” Sal- 
vation is promised to the believer, the man of faith. 
An achieving life is represented by Jesus as a life in 
which faith takes a commanding place. It is not some- 
thing that can be worked up, but which can be received 
asagift. By grace are ye saved through faith, and that 
not of yourselves; it is the gift of God.” “ All things 
are possible to him that believeth.” 

We are face to face with the question as to just how 
the sense of the presence of the Carpenter is to be ex- 
perienced, and Comradeship established now. We have 
little realization of how large a part the faith faculty 
plays in the successes, the victories and the happiness 


148 


: 


ee 


MOUNTAIN CLIMBING 149 


of life. In religion we are precminently in the realm 
of faith. Comradeship with Christ is possible only 
through a faith that absolutely unites us to Him. 
Again and again Jesus upbraided His Comrades be- 
cause they lacked faith. “ How is it that ye have no 
faith?” After the Transfiguration, when He came 
down from the mountain and found the disciples won- 
dering because they had lacked power to cast out the 
evil spirit, He gave as the reason for their failure: 
“ Because of your unbelief.” 

It is lack of faith that today prevents multitudes of 
professed Christians from enjoying true fellowship 
with God. To far too many people, Christian experi- 
ence is a hazy, unreal thing. The historic Christ, yes; 
but the Comrade Christ, no. ‘ I cannot make this thing 
real”’ is the constant regret expressed. If everything 
depends on faith, and if the Carpenter stressed it as the 
explanation of every victory of life, why not make a 
study of what it is and how to obtain it! If we are to 
enjoy mountain climbing with the Carpenter, faith must 
visualize Him, and faith must link us to Him, and 
faith must indeed effect a real fusion whereby our lives 
are one with His. The exhilarant life is the life in 
which we know ourselves linked up with the Life 
Divine. It is on the Mount with God we have the 
deepest sense of joy and inspiration. 

We stood one morning, before a single ray of the 
sun could be seen, on the top of Pike’s Peak. In the 
chill of the morning we waited. Not one object could 
be discerned beyond the immediate artificially lighted 
surroundings. But we had faith in the coming of the 


150 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


sun. So we waited until the wonders of valley and 
mountain should be unveiled. Our faith was rewarded. 
Streamers of light began to rise above the eastern 
horizon. The light increased until the eastern sky was 
all aglow with a silver sea. Then in quick succession 
panoramas of splendor appeared. The “sea of glass 
mingled with fire” stood before us. Away down in 
the valley the morning mists had caught the fires of the 
heavens. One great billowy sea of molten gold spread 
before us. Nature was transfigured. Time passed, and 
in our vision we passed from the transfiguration to the 
unfolded beauties of the broad valley. From our 
vantage ground, with wide horizon we could see vast 
stretches of mountain and plain. Yonder was the Gar- 
den of the Gods, with its weird figures. Here and 
there villages dotted the plain, and in the spaces between 
were orchards and vineyards, rivers and glistening 
pools. Everything at last stood out clearly defined. It 
seemed as though the universe were ours. What an 
unspeakable charm there is in wide horizons! We 
became aware that the great thing about life is altitude. 
It is altitude that gives amplitude. It is to such heights 
the Carpenter was wont to lead His Comrades. He 
does it still, but only where faith in Him secures a 
real following. It is the glory of God to unveil Him- 
self. The effect of Comradeship is altitude and ampli- 
tude of life, mental and moral. Littleness can have no 
place on mountain peaks. ‘The sublimities of life are 


wide open to any one who walks the heights with the- 


Lord of Glory today. The dim and distant become 
distinct and near. The far-away is reachable. When 


MOUNTAIN CLIMBING 151 


the Comrades of Christ stood in the midst of the angry 
storm and their boat was sinking they were not as 
alone as they thought themselves to be. Faith would 
have, then and there, made the Master available to 
them. They learned through that experience that 
the Carpenter is solicitous though invisible, reachable 
though seemingly distant, unpreventable though wind 
and wave seem to prevent His approach, communicable 
when discovered, and more than equal to every emer- 
gency of life in which His comrades may find them- 
selves. All this, through faith. In the Hero chapter 
of Hebrews the one basis for every great achievement 
of Hebrew leaders was faith. When Jesus was about 
to leave His comrades as a visible presence, He well 
knew how easy it would be for them to lose sight of 
Him spiritually. It was just this He desired to prevent. 
He begins His wonderful discourse on peace and power 
with the words: ‘Let not your heart be troubled.’ 
How could it be avoided, when every sort of distress 
and trial was to be experienced? “ Believe in God, 
believe also in me.” “ He that hath seen me hath seen 
the Father.” ‘ To believe in God is to believe in me. 
Weare one.” 

If we are ever to stand on sacred summits of com- 
manding sweep of truth and know things as they are, 
it will be under the leadership of a regnant present-day 
Christ. The Christ for today is the Christ who calls 
men into intimate fellowship with Himself and saves 
them. ‘The Christ for today is the Christ of deep and 
soul-filling experience, through Comradeship. We 
must hear His voice, see His face and know that we 


152 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


have grasped His hand and that He, and not our own 


unaided wisdom or lack of wisdom, is guiding us 
mountainward. ‘Talk of thrills! There are none like 
those given in this world by comradeship, human and 
Divine. The sweetest of all emotions is the emotion 
of Comradeship with the Carpenter. That strange 
mysterious inbreathing of the Great Comrade into our 
very souls is what we may well pray for and secure. 
But it is all a matter of faith, You may argue about 
it until doomsday and never experience it. You must 
take it, use it, possess it. It is yours for the asking— 
in faith. 

Well, then, what is faith? It is something that 
makes available vast wealth beyond the tangible and 
visible. It is something that makes Divine resource a 
possession as positive as any material thing which we 
call ours. It is the secret of prevailing prayer. ‘There 
is a vast and discouraging distance between the goal 
we are seeking and the distance we have covered. The 
pursued and the attained are wide apart. The soul is 
overawed by a sense of the potential mood. The pos- 
sible is so wonderful yet so strangely far beyond us. 
Then the imperative mood sobers us. We must, there- 
fore we can. But how? ‘The ideal beckons us. Con- 
trary winds and boisterous waves appall us. We are 
in danger of sinking. Only faith can save us. In spite 
of all dangers and handicaps the mountain-peak keeps 
calling us. The ideal beckons to us. Unaided finite- 
ness denies that our ideals are other than impossible 
Utopias and points with fine scorn to our limited 
resource. 


MOUNTAIN CLIMBING 153 


Our conscious inability baffles us but cannot kill 
purpose. How can a measureless need be met with 
a measurable resource? Of course, that is out of the 
question. What then? Faith. It comes to our res- 
cue, Life’s manageable ideals demand it. There is an 
intuitive belief that somehow, somewhere, there is 
available a resource equal to the ideal. Consistency 
necessitates it. The soul’s aspiration declares it. Jus- 
tice asserts it. Who will believe that our highest and 
holiest conceptions are but tantalizing Utopias or irri- 
descent dreams? ‘Then indeed were we condemned to 
endless peacelessness. No; it is not true. Faith an- 
swers the soul’s unremitting cry for enough of Al- 
mightiness to enable us to move on toward celestial 
summits, where all the beatific glories of transfiguration 
will become a normal experience of life. One thing is 
sure, the world of sense does not satisfy our highest 
aspirations. Even the thought-world leaves an aching 
void. The things with which we deal in the material 
world do not conduct us to the “tree of life’ without 
whose fruit the soul is doomed to hunger on forever. 
Only the Author of Life can contribute the essentials 
to growth toward perfection. We are doomed to a life 
of baffled endeavor unless somehow we can so connect 
with the Author of Life as to have at command all the 
resources of His own great heart and mind. 

Christianity declares for a communicating, con- 
tributing, empowering Deity. Vital connection with 
Him is the supreme concern of life. If we fail here, 
life is a wretched failure everywhere. Either com- 
radeship or condemnation stands before us. Faith 


154 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


apprehends and appropriates the Divine. Faith estab- 
lishes a connection between the measurable and the 
Infinite. Its discoveries are real. Its testimony is true. 
Its appropriations are our wealth. Our mightiest in- 
centive to personal effort is the fact that every energy 
af our own is supplemented by the measureless energy 
of God. Not what we are, but what we are to become, 
spurs us on. A sense of ability produces lasting satis- 
factions and a sense of contentment. Power as a pos- 
sibility is inspirational. ‘This faith cannot be “ worked 
up.” You cannot say, “ Go to, now, let us have faith, 
and move mountains.” ‘The faith does not come, and 
the mountains do not move. It is a question of how 
we will use the power when once it is given. It is 
literally true, as the Carpenter told His Comrades, that 
if we have faith as a grain of mustard seed we can 
remove mountains. The fact is there is not permitted 
a faith to be used for self-aggrandizement or personal 
glory. Faith is a gift of God. It is given, when asked 
for with a purpose to serve and to glorify God. Here 
is the crux of the whole matter of faith. We refer, of 
course, to Christian faith. God gives it just as far as 
its exercise will glorify God and bless humanity. Not 


a particle more of Christian faith can be yours than you’ 


will use to connect up with God for holy purposes. 
Faith is a continuous incitement to the heroic. It leads 
to self-effacement and_ self-investment. How poor 
would life be if its sole treasure consisted only of the 


defined and demonstrated in the material realms! 7, 


The reality of the larger wealth is not mechanically 
demonstrable, but the fact that it is available is attested 


Oe eT ee 


is. 


MOUNTAIN CLIMBING 155 


by the experience of every Comrade of the Carpenter. 
The soul poverty that inevitably results from ruling 
out Christian faith and its products is seen in the lives 
of such men of ability and even genius as Schopen- 
hauer. He reveals the poverty of unaided finiteness at 
its best. He developed a philosophy that denied the 
validity of faith. His destructive mood and false sys- 
tem developed hopeless pessimism. ‘There was nothing 
to relieve the oppressive darkness in which he found 
himself at the end. Swift drifted into doubt, and lived 
in a rayless, hopeless night with little incentive to effort, 
none to sacrifice, and with nothing to gladden his heart. 
Even Matthew Arnold cannot seem to relieve the 
somber sadness which rests like a shadow on his heart, 
because he has ceased to find any reality in Comrade- 
ship with the Great Companion. His verse is like the 
sighing of the winter’s wind among leafless trees. The 
consequences of doubt, and the dental of faith, has 
rarely been pictured with greater vividness than in 
James Thompson’s City of Dreadful Night. 

The nineteenth century began under a dark cloud of 
atheism. It was intolerable. In that heavy poison- 
weighted atmosphere, the best in man could not live. 
It outraged the clear intuitions of the soul. The ag- 
nostic mood took possession of many gifted minds. It 
was a denial, as an active force, of all that lies beyond 
the realm of the intellectually manageable, without the 
aid of the Infinite. It utterly failed. Humanity rejects 
all pessimistic philosophies. Accompanying agnosti- 
cism was a crass materialism. Nature was severely 
arraigned for her unethical operations. The leaders of 


156 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


scientific thought found no true basis for ethics. John 
Stuart Mill was the exponent of naturalism; what did 
it offer? Nothing that satisfied. But faith survived 
all these deliverances and assertions of doubt. After 
thirty years of supremacy, the scientific mood gave 
place to the idealistic mood, and men began to breathe 
more freely. Through all the changing moods of 
thought, faith in the Great Comrade, has held her 
ground. After the confusion of tongues and the noise 
of battle faith has stood out in its glorious apparel 
more resplendent than before the war against it. Ten- 
nyson is at his best when sounding the note of faith 
and, in wonderful poetic imagery, telling forth its © 
beauty and power of achievement. Browning, the most 
inspirational of the poets of his day, was inspirational 
just because of his unswerving faith. The key to his 
optimism is found in a single sentence in Pippa Passes: 
“God’s in His Heavens, All’s right with the world.” 
His unfailing faith in a Superintending Providence 
was a perpetual incentive to noble endeavor to lift the — 
world. These men who enjoyed Comradeship with the 
Carpenter day by day made a contribution to the world 
through their poetic works that will live long after the 
deliverances of skeptics and the apostles of Naturalism 
are forgotten. John Oxenham is a modern illustration 
of a poet inspired and faith awakening. 

Faith is not credulity. It has a true rationale. It is 
always reasonable, if it is a true faith. Every frontier 
terminal has this inspiring legend: “ Plus ultra.” An © 
eminent canon of the English Church said: “ From the 
platform of the done, we look out upon the undone.” 


MOUNTAIN CLIMBING 157 


Let us say from the platform of the demonstrated, we 
look out upon the undemonstrated, and claim it as our 
possession. 

The highest rung in the ladder of scientific knowl- 
edge comes short of what we feel we must attain. It is 
from this highest rung, faith bids us take our flight to 
measureless spiritual wisdom and power. Christian 
philosophers have all acknowledged a legitimate sphere 
for the exercise of faith. We would not wish to advo- 
cate a faith that ignores the criteria of truth, nor would 
we dare try to exercise such a faith. The faith the 
Carpenter enjoined is of the very essence of reason. 
Faith reveals the naturalness of the supernatural and 
the reasonableness of the superlogical. The more se- 
curely faith is entrenched in reason, the greater will be 
the inspirations and achievements resulting. What the 
reason requires, in order to soul completeness, that 
faith supplies. Let there be a full recognition of the 
intellectual integrity of a faith that so relates man to 
God that the entire realm of the spirit becomes as real 
as the experiences of the natural world. The validity 
of its testimony cannot be gainsaid. It has led the 
multitudes who have exercised it, into saving and 
sanctifying relations with the Invisible God. 

The content of faith is simply this, belief in, and an 
affectional devotement to Almighty God. That is 
Christian faith. It carries with it the thought of per- 
sonal commitment. Right here is its peculiar applica- 
tion to the thought of Comradeship with the Carpenter. 
Belief alone is not Christian faith at all. Until there 
is an affectional element, together with personal devo- 


158 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


tion to its object, it is not Christian faith. Faith is an 
effectuating force in the degree in which its content is 
infinite. Faith can draw from no higher source than 
its object. Its contributions are circumscribed by its 
content. This opens up the whole question: “ Can and 
will God communicate Himself to man as a Friend 
and a Comrade?” 

Revelation is corroborated by experience. Both say 
God does connect with the human heart when condi- 
tions are right. While man is “out of tune with the 
Infinite’ there can be no cooperation: “‘ The achieving 
Holiness of God Almighty made a true basis for a 
restoration of harmony between man and God.” The 
death of the Carpenter-Christ was a victory. It estab- 
lished an irrefragable bond between the human and the 
Divine. 

The Love of God is the achieving holiness of God. 
This leads us to the full content of an achieving faith. 
It is nothing less than almighty, holy, atoning, redeem- 
ing God. It is thus the Cross becomes the world’s 
center. Faith advances and holds guarantees of vic- 
tory in all obligations, because it appropriates the re- 
deeming and life-imparting power of God. By the 
victory and disclosures of Calvary, all vital truth be- 
comes discoverable and appropriable, through faith. 
The entire record of human achievement in history is 
nothing more nor less than the record of faith’s un- 
ceasing contribution. 

Through the coming of Christ all valuations changed. 
His concepts were revolutionary in His day. By pre- 
cept and life, He wonderfully changed the ideals of life. 


— 


MOUNTAIN CLIMBING 159 


He gave larger and more intelligent answers to all the 
great spiritual questions of life. He rested everything 
on heart purpose. He set before the world new con- 
ceptions of success. The laurel wreath He held was 
for brows unused to worldly honor. His approbation 
was for the nethermost and hindermost, who yet were 
the most advanced through faith. He taught the world 
the graciousness of sympathy, the sublimity of humil- 
ity, the dignity of self-effacement and the high honor 
which must always result from unflinching devotion 
to truth and duty. 

He taught a new kind of brotherhood, one which 
knows neither caste nor color. He denounced false 
ideas of independence that ignore the rights of others. 
He gave a new conception of law, as something not 
arbitrary or existing for the sake of the law-giver, but 
something existing in the very constitution of things, 
whose sanctions are wholly independent of Divine 
decree. The splendid truth of the unity of the race 
was declared by the Carpenter, long before it was an- 
nounced as a scientific discovery. Is it strange, then, 
that faith in Jesus Christ has played so large a part in 
world progress? What has it not done for woman- 
hood, childhood, manhood, citizenship, for music, art 
and learning! Everywhere you find the footprints of 
the Carpenter as you pass up the slopes of progressive 
achievement. 

It is one thing to have a vision of some desirable 
achievement for the human race and quite another to 
have the courage to undertake its realization. Here 
again faith is the faculty that seems to give to man 


160 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


power of initiative. What great movement for two 
thousand years is not credited to faith as the initiating 
cause? Not one. Human ability shows at its best 
when undertaking the impossible. What gives such 
endeavor rationality? Faith. Not only initiative, but 
persistency, requires a power above the normal and 
unaided power of man. Men easily weary in well 
doing. Persistency in the pursuit of high ideals neces- 
sitates constant spiritual renewal. 

Unless reénforced, initiative endeavor is quickly ex- 
hausted. Most men leave unfinished buildings. Faith 
comes to the aid of the man of high aspiration and 
unites him to measureless power. Precisely this results 
from that Christian experience which we call Com- 
radeship with the Carpenter. Contact with Him re- 
enforces, encourages for every great undertaking in 
life. It has been clearly proven that no obstructive 
philosophies of life can ever form a permanent barrier 
to faith’s advance. The apostles of negation sing their 
dirges, while faith sings her pean of victory. She is 
ever working toward personal liberty and individual 
worth. She multiplies her philanthropies, asserts her 
humanism, and at the same time leads to spiritual 
heights where companionship with God is her constant 
joy. When the world becomes science-drunk, faith 
saves it. When materialistic considerations absorb the 
thought of man, and interest in art and music and 
beauty seemingly dies, faith resurrects all, and men get 
new glimpses of God. When science becomes sordid, 
a new philosophy captures science, and then faith calls 
both into service. The surface waves may conceal the 


_—z 


MOUNTAIN CLIMBING 161 


flow of the Gulf Stream, but it is there. What a world 
would this be if faith directed the thought of genius! 
Then Byron would not have lamented: 


“ My days are in the yellow leaf— 
The flowers, the fruits of life, are gone. 
The worm, the canker and the grief are mine alone.” 


Shelley would not have extinguished his light prema- 
turely, and Voltaire would not have passed out in dark- 
ness. The star of Hume would not have been covered 
with a cloud. 

Christ founded a Kingdom. Spiritual imperialism 
is the ideal for the Church. How can it be realized? 
There is but one answer: Comradeship with the Car- 
penter. A triumphant faith that God is here, in the 
spirit of Christ, to redeem and bless. 

The reign of Divine Love will be realized when fel- 
lowship with the Living Christ gives a Christly rhythm 
to the heart-beat of humanity. Then will be realized 
the dream of Goethe: 


“ Hoary headed selfishness has felt its death blow, 
And 1s tottering to the grave. 
A brighter morn awaits the human sky, 
When every transfer of earth's natural gifts 
Shall prove a commerce of good words and works, 
The thirst for fame, the fear of poverty, disease 

and woe, 

War with its million horrors and fierce hell, 
Shall live but in the memory of time; 
While man, with changeless nature coalescing, 
Shall undertake regeneration’s work.” 


XIV 


A COURT SCENE WITH THE CARPENTER- 
JUDGE 


THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “Neither do I condemn 
thee. Go thy way and sin no more.”—JOHN 8:11. 


Ts was the most daring word ever spoken by the 
Carpenter. He laid Himself open to the criticism of 
friends and foes alike. His enemies would make it an 
occasion for an unworthy standard of morality. His 
friends would accuse Him of encouraging evil. The 
storm was growing daily. Accusation, animosity, was 
developing into conspiracy. The occasion furnished 
the opportunity for the Carpenter to play the role of 
Judge. The feast of tabernacles was at its height. 
Following His counsel, the disciples had come to the 
feast without Him. They found on every hand Jesus 
was the one person talked about. Members of the San- 
hedrin were venomous in their denunciation of Him. 
He was an innovator, a disturber of the peace, a de- 
stroyer of tradition, a self-appointed judge of the most 
important religious organization on earth, a pretender, 
a blasphemer, and so on through all the list of crimes 
which their malice charged against Him. If He comes 
to the feast, He will be arraigned and tried before the 
high court. Will He come to the feast? His Comrades 
hope not. They are appalled at the feeling of hatred 


162 


: 


A COURT SCENE 163 


entertained about One who they know was guilty of 
only one thing; namely, healing and helping His fellow- 
men. Yet they seem not to have uttered any public 
word in His defense. It is remarkable that, so far as 
we know, Jesus was compelled to face every danger and 
every charge against Him alone. No voice was openly 
lifted in His behalf all through His life until His trial, 
when Joseph and Nicodemus made bold to protest 
against the treatment He was receiving. How lonely 
He must have often felt when the storm of hate was 
swirling about Him! 

While the agitation is at its height, His Comrades 
linger anxiously in the temple courts. The cruelty, the 
injustice of all the accusations and harsh judgments 
against their noble Master awakens indignation, yet 
they dare utter no word against the rulers. They only 
hope prudence will keep the Carpenter in Galilee. 

Then came the Carpenter. All unexpectedly, right 
in the face of threat and violent utterances, the Carpen- 
ter walked into the temple, and immediately assumed 
the role of Teacher of teachers. He knew He was, by 
right of commission, the true Ruler of the Temple. 

The agitation became more violent. His words were 
so marvelous that His enemies were appalled. Officials 
sent to arrest Him stood in amazement as He spoke. 
Such teaching! How exalted, how divine! He made 
His masterly defense of His act of healing on the Sab- 
bath. He was His own advocate. The last day of the 
feast came. Filled with a consciousness of His Mes- 
sianic mission and His Divine power and authority, a 
holy passion stirring in His soul, facing those who 


164 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


hated Him, He flung out the challenge: “If any man 
thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.” What a 
claim! ‘The world’s satisfaction in Himself! Wisdom, 
peace, power, blessing, freedom from sin—everything 
(desirable He declared to be in Himself. Where was 
the answer? ‘The very boldness of His declaration 
silenced caviling for the moment, and the officers sent 
to arrest Him stood with bated breath and changed 
their purpose. In the face of such a claim, a claim not 
one could answer, they must decline to arrest Him. 
They return to the Sanhedrin, and offer as the reason 
for their failure to carry out the mandate of the ecclesi- 
astical authorities: “‘ Never man spake like this man.” 
Another way of saying: “ While He is a man, yet He is 
much more. This is no merely human being who is in 
the temple making for Himself such stupendous claims. 
We dare not arrest Him.” 

With a sneer of contempt, they were accused of 
having been deceived by the arch-deceiver. Hear now 
the angry debate: “ He is a good man and is interested 
in the people.” “ He is a deceiver, and you have had 
no education to warrant an expression of judgment 
about Him.” “ What do you who have no theological 
training know about it?” “ All scholars will tell you 
He is either self-deceived or a deliberate deceiver.” 


“ But He is a worker of miracles, and is that not an. 


evidence that the Carpenter is much more than an ordi- 
nary man?” “ Supposing the Messiah were to come, 
would He accredit Himself any more fully than this 
man has done?” “ Be silent! You also are led away 
by His deceptions—can any Prophet come out of Gali- 





A COURT SCENE 165 


lee? Read your sacred books, and you will be wiser. 
Do you know of any intellectuals who accept Him as 
Divine? What can the multitude know about sacred 
truth? It is for scholarship to determine who and what 
the Nazarene is.” ‘‘ Doth our law,” said Nicodemus, 
“permit a man to be condemned unheard?” ‘ Mem- 
bers of the Sanhedrin, it is time for us to take drastic 
action. Do you hear what Nicodemus saith? He, too, 
is being led astray. This thing can continue no longer.” 

Evening came. The contention could not longer con- 
tinue in the temple courts. Then, it is recorded: “ And 
they went every man to his own house; but Jesus went 
to the Mount of Olives.” ‘The feast of tabernacles had 
ended. The lights were extinguished. ‘The multitude 
went each to his own place of rest. He who owned 
the world had no home—He went out into the great 
open spaces, to be with the Father. 

The great temple of nature was His place of peace. 
There is a beautiful spiritual song: ‘“ I walk alone with 
God.” Wonderfully it unfolds the truth of spiritual 
comradeship. Bethany was just over the brow of the 
hill. ‘There were His special friends. But in this im- 
portant hour Jesus sought the closest fellowship with 
the Eternal Father. He well knew what was awaiting 
Him. The blazing anger of His foes would become a 
greater conflagration. 

Reactional recreations—important thought! The 
multitude sought repose; Jesus sought reenforcement. 
Human character wonderfully discloses itself. You 
can tell a man’s character by the way in which he spends 
his leisure moments. Vacations are more indicative of 


166 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


qualities of character than the ordinary line of activity. 
What do men seek when the stress of obligation is 
removed? When the day’s work is over, where will 
the evening be spent? You may associate with a busi- 
ness man day after day through the year and know less 
about him than you will know in twenty-four hours on 
an ocean liner. How will he spend his leisure time? 
Some will spend their time communing with the God 
of nature, as seen in the vast ocean with its mighty 
waves and great heaving pulses, or as seen in the flam- 
ing glory of a sunset at sea. Others will be occupied 
with books. Others will be drinking and gambling. 
The recreational reactions of men—a wonderful study! 
Jesus again and again sought for relief from the stress 
of self-giving. His moments of leisure were never 
moments of license. ‘hey were not even hours spent 
in self-satisfactions or indulgences. He spent His 
leisure moments in the mountains with God. It is 
necessary that the strain of toil have relief. A vaca- 
tionless life is an overstrained life. The period of 
leisure will tell you what you are. 

Three men of professional prominence were on the 
cruise to Egypt and the holy land some years since. 
We knew them well. They had received a “ special 
indulgence.” Within two years one was dead; in three 
years another, and the remaining one lived on in 
wretchedness. Sinful self-indulgence was the cause. 
Their recreational reactions were wrong. Cairo was 
their undoing. Ask yourself in the hour of leisure the 
nature of your impulses. Ascertain whether the im- 
pulse is for gratification or growth. If gratification, 


A COURT SCENE 167 


then the result will be a time of arrested development. 
Times of rest should be times of growth. Vacation 
should mean recreation. Jesus went to the Mount of 
Olives. God—goodness—power—preparation! 

Morning came. Night had not changed the temper 
of His enemies. He was ready; He had seen the 
Father. Again the people thronged about Him. It 
was hardly safe, yet they felt the irresistible drawing 
of His wondrous personality. What was it in the Car- 
penter that pulled people to Him? It was that inner 
Redemptive Love, always active in His soul. The 
threats of Pharisees and Sadducees could not hold back 
the people anxious for more light and more love and 
more life. Times do not change the drawing power of 
the Carpenter. He is still the mightiest magnet on 
earth. Hold Him up before the people in His true 
nature, and they come in thousands to learn more about 
Him. Nothing will constantly hold an audience, 
through the years, but the one commanding Personal- 
ity, Jesus Christ. His comrades catch His spirit and 
feel the thrill of His love, and they, too, become mag- 
nets, to draw people to them. 

It is amusing to hear unsuccessful men discuss why 
some men have large congregations. They will analyze 
situations and personal qualities, all the time seeking 
above all else to explain away any superior power in 
the individual himself. The reason is within easy 
reach. The Carpenter-Christ is presented in the wealth 
of His Redeeming love and His measureless power, 
and then the people find their greatest needs supplied 
and their deepest questions answered. Why are so 


168 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


many scholastics shunned? Why are men, accounted 
eminent, given a wide berth by the mass of the people? 
Coldness! Lack of sympathy. No heart. Not so with 
true Comrades of the Carpenter. A burning desire to 
bless increases with the passing years when you walk 
with the Carpenter-Christ today. 

When morning came Jesus again entered the Temple, 
and taught. The unhurried Christ! ‘He sat down 
and taught them.” There is much in attitude. His 
attitude was that of dignity arising from a sense of 
power and wisdom. He knew the truth. He knew He 
was pouring out beatitude. He had only two and a 
half years to do the work of millenniums, yet He never 
hurried. The clamoring voices of accusation did not 
startle Him or change His speech. He was no trimmer. 
He saw the urgency of human need, yet He never hur- 
ried. He taught the world that haste is waste, but the 
fevered world has never learned the lesson. We rush to 
and fro as though everything hinged on what could be 
done in the next ten minutes of time. He sat down 
like a king, and taught them. We rush to public plat- 
forms and seek to attract, entertain, captivate. He did 
all without effort. He did it by offering something 
worth while. What a curriculum! Not one line of 
study calculated to benefit, enlarge, empower, omitted. 
Not one. Not one of the graces neglected. No wisdom. 
not touched upon. Is there ambition? He taught how 
to turn it into aspiration. Is there sorrow? He taught 
how to transform it into joy. With a clarity of utter- 
ance such as no teacher in all the world could use, He 
presented proposition after proposition, revelation after 


A COURT SCENE 169 


revelation, all calculated to ennoble life. His vision was 
clear and His mind balanced. So He taught. He does 
today. It is the highest form of entertainment. He 
taught truth relating to both worlds. With a familiar- 
ity born of experience He discoursed on things Divine. 
No man is ever wise until he has sat at the feet of the 
Carpenter. 

But He is interrupted. Something is ever interrupt- 
ing the Great Teacher today. There is a noisy demon- 
stration in the outer room. He turns, to discover a 
woman being dragged before Him. Her hair is 
disheveled. Her face bears the expression of distress. 
She is making no protest. She is the picture of despair 
and hopelessness. Her accusers make known the fact 
of her sin. The evidence is narrated with zest. Judg- 
ment is demanded. The Carpenter a Judge! It was as 
though a court had been constituted, and He appointed 
to preside as judge. He accepted the appointment. He 
heard the accusation. The law was explicit: According 
to the Jewish law, she must be stoned to death. A 
throng had followed the poor creature and stood wait- 
ing the action of the Carpenter. He is cornered. If 
He pronounces sentence of death, then where is His 
compassion, and by what means may He insure that it 
will be carried out? If He declines to pass sentence, 
He is a coward, and lacking in the noble qualities 
claimed for Him. If He pronounces sentence in her 
favor, then He is a menace to public morals, for He is 
encouraging crime. Will He deal with the transgressor 
justly? Yes, but if only justly, then there is no hope. 
Will He deal mercifully? Then advantage will be 


170 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


taken of His merciful attitude, to denounce Him. Re- 
member, He had come from the Mount of Olives, 
where He had been in prayer. Happy the people who 
have judges who pray. Trust a judge who comes into 
the court room from the Mount of Olives. What does 
he see in her accusers? A wolf pack. What wonder 
that He had said to His comrades: “ Behold, I send 
you forth as sheep among wolves.” Ferocity and 
rapacity and pitilessness cannot be better symbolized 
than in a hungry wolf. 

A Russian painter has represented the viciousness 
and mercilessness and terribleness of a wolf pack bear- 
ing down upon the victim. A mounted Cossack on 
furlough is nearing his cabin after a ride through a 
lonely wood. He has heard that most terrible of all 
cries, the cry of the wolf pack, and has ridden wildly, 
plying whip and spur to his horse, and will soon reach 
home and safety. It is a life-and-death matter. He 
has fired his last shot, and some of the maddened beasts 
have waited to tear and devour the wounded one, 
while others are straining every muscle to reach their 
prey. Their tongues are protruding from their mouths, 
dripping with saliva. Beastliness and brutality is at its 
very worst. Your heart beats in sympathy with the 
imperilled Cossack, and you wonder whether or not he 
will be saved. | 

That is a true picture of thousands upon thousands 
of victimized people in this world. Jesus saw the wolf 
pack, in the accusers of the woman. Did they have any 
zeal for righteousness? They cared only to carry out 
their malicious designs. Where was the accomplice, _ 


A COURT SCENE 171 


the partner in sin, of this woman? Why had he not 
been brought before Him for judgment. The double 
standard! The woman always cursed, the man permit- 
ted to go free. That is intolerable to true Comrades of 
the Carpenter. Social justice has never been done to 
women. Man, because powerful, has been cruel. 

The Carpenter-Judge looked first upon the woman. 
Fie could not condone her guilt. He must sentence her. 
But He saw criminals a hundred times worse than she 
was, in her accusers. Only motive counts with God: 
“ Let him that is without sin cast the first stone at her.” 
It was a blow between the eyes. They fell back 
stunned. One greater than Daniel has come to judg- 
ment. They were exploiting their victim for their own 
purposes. They were intent on incriminating Him 
whom they had all unwittingly appointed Judge. Yes, 
He pronounced her guilty. He sentenced her. But the 
execution of the sentence must be in innocent hands. 
Punitive judgment belongs to God alone. ‘These ac- 
cusers thought only of punishment for their victim 
and vengeance on the Judge. Restorational judgment 
should occupy the attention of our courts. The “ Hole 
of Calcutta’’ was representative of the prisons of the 
world before John Howard Paine and Florence Night- 
ingale undertook their humanitarian work of prison 
reform. It was the beginning of a new and better 
day. Salvation and not annihilation is the Christian 
ideal in dealing with criminals. The pardon and parole 
system may be abused, but conditions have vastly im- 
proved, and thousands of men who had gone wrong 
have been reclaimed. 


172 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


The Carpenter wrote upon the ground. It is the 
only record we have of the writing of Jesus. What 
did He write? Inasmuch as it was required of a Judge 
to write out his sentence, why may the writing of the 
Carpenter not have been the sentence He was about to 
impose on this woman? ‘“ Neither do I condemn thee; 
go thy way, and sin no more.” He sentenced her to 
life and not to death. Here is mercy Divine. Did or 
does Christ condone sin? Forever no, but He has 
mercy on the sinner. 

“Judge righteous judgment.” That demands a 
knowledge we do not always possess. Then be gener- 
ously magnanimous. Here was the sentence to life: 
“ Sin no more.” Guilt? Yes, but another chance. It 
was a sentence forbidding further sinning. That 
meant life. No man ever yet won His way into Divine 
favor by the high perfection of His own conduct. On 
his knees in penitence is the road to Comradeship with 
the Carpenter. The accusers of the woman taken in sin 
were still very ceremonious. They went out in the 
order of their age, ‘‘ from the eldest to the youngest.” 
Ceremony, but no justice and no Christ. There is no 
salvation there. 

There is a “ day of judgment.” God is kindly merci- 
ful. Comrades of the Carpenter have nothing to fear 
in the great assize. Be not deceived. ‘‘ He that be- 
lieveth on me hath everlasting life and shall not come 
into condemnation.” The Great Comrade offers His 
constant companionship as the supreme assurance of 
“life everlasting.” Evil is intensely aggressive. It 
stops at no boundaries. It recognizes no commands. 


A COURT SCENE 173 


It respects no sanctities. It violates with impunity 
every right of humanity. It is perpetually crowding 
out and crowding back virtue and honor. With un- 
limited audacity, it confronts incarnate holiness. It 
usurps every available throne. As the savage dog, no 
matter how long it is chained, will go its fullest length 
and throw its power against it in an effort to reach its 
victim, so likewise with evil, when dominating the heart 
of man. Compromises never satisfy the powers of 
darkness. Flags of truce are never honored. When a 
question of right is under consideration, unyielding 
right is the only safe attitude. The beginnings of all 
sin are insignificant, but the spirit of compromise is the 
signal for further encroachment and more tyrannical 
dictation. One square foot of a dyke opened, and you 
have endangered the entire area protected from the 
sea. A tiny aperture in a dam means ultimately its 
washing away and the devastating flood sweeping to 
destruction all that lies in the pathway below. 
Powerful as it is, evil is more than matched by 
incarnate righteousness. The predictions of modern 
unbelief that the Christian Church, and Christianity 
itself, will pass away only reveal the mental and moral 
folly of those who present them. ‘The man who goes 
to a pebbly shore and stands throwing stones at the 
stars with the expectation of stopping the rhythm of 
the spheres is wise in comparison with a man who opens 
his vials of wrath upon the Carpenter and His Com- 
rades, expecting to destroy their power. More effective 
is the barking coyote on the western prairie, trying to 
retard the onward sweep of the lightning express, than 


174 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


are the criticisms, the sneers, the taunts and denunci- 
ations of atheism to retard the onward sweep of the 
chariot of God Almighty. You can more easily destroy 
the effect of the sunshine upon the earth than you can 
destroy the influence of the Comrades of the Carpenter 
charged with His fervor and love. The affirmations of 
men are easily discounted. The speculations of men 
may be ignored, but the living, beating heart of a trust- 
ing child of God is irresistible. 


XV 


IN THE SHADOWS WITH THE CARPENTER 


THEN SPAKE THE CARPENTER: “I am the resurrection 
and the life. He that believeth in me, though he were dead, 
yet shall he live, and he that liveth and believeth in me shall 
never die.’—JOHN 11:25. 


STEP softly. There is a shadow on the hearth. The 
gaunt forbidding spectre, sickness, has cast a spell of 
gloom. Have you seen Watts’ picture hanging in the 
Tate Gallery, London, bearing the title, ‘The Man 
with the Scythe’’? A cottage home of humble appear- 
ance, with its little garden of flowers, is under the 
shadow of an impending sorrow. A mother is seated 
in the yard with her arm protectingly about the emaci- 
ated form of her beloved child. She is shielding her 
from “The Man with the Scythe,” who is passing by 
the gate, hesitating as though uncertain whether or not 
he will enter. The anguish on the mother’s face is the 
striking feature of the whole painting. Death is the 
man with the scythe. Sickness is his invitation to enter. 
The mother well knows that if he turns and comes 
within the gate with his scythe, she has no power 
to prevent the reaping. Her darling will be taken 
from her. 

Sickness makes the whole world kin. The man with 
the scythe is no respecter of persons. Bolts and bars 
cannot stay him. Passionate love and devotion are 


175 


176 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


powerless. When sickness enters the home no affecta- 
tion, no denials, no imaginations can change the fact 
that the shadow is there. Sickness in a mansion estab- 
lishes the “ zone of quiet.” You must drive carefully 
and noiselessly ; some one is sick. No blaze of electric 
lights, no levity, no assertive indifference to conditions, 
can take away the shadow cast by serious illness. 
Everything is changed. Happiness is in eclipse. 
Hilarity is impossible, if the mind is normal. It is the 
time when self-sufficiency breaks down. When the sun 
of health and prosperity brightens the path, indepen- 
dence seems quite possible. Wealth, eminence, pros- 
perity, give a sense of personal power. When the 
shadow falls it is different. You can walk in the sun- 
light alone, but in the shadow comradeship is sweet. 

The Bethany home was in the shadow. ‘The Car- 
penter had often enjoyed the hospitality of this home. 
Here He had found sympathy with His mission. Love 
interlocked the members of the home with Jesus. He 
had here found rest and sweet repose when the burden 
of the world’s sin rested heavily on His heart. Lazarus 
had listened eagerly to His words. The two had be- 
come comrades—with the full significance of the words. 
Now the shadow has fallen, the first thought is of the 
Carpenter. How can He be reached? If only He were 
here! What no ordinary physician could do, He had 
the power and the will todo. He had proven Himself 
the Great Physician. Happy are those on such inti- 
mate terms with the Carpenter today that His presence 
is the first thought when the shadow falls. 

“The sisters therefore sent to him, saying, Lord, he 


IN THE SHADOWS 177 


whom thou lovest is sick.’”’ A touching, tender mes- 
sage. He did not need to be reminded of the bonds of 
love that held Him to Lazarus and to the sorrowing 
sisters. Jesus was far away. He was holding a special 
mission at the very place where He had first been cre- 
dentialed by the Father. ‘‘ Many believed on Him 
there.” It was time of revival, His cause was making 
headway. He was gaining disciples. The shadow of 
sickness and sorrow always commands the sympathy 
and loving attention of Jesus Christ. He will surely 
leave His work and hasten to the bedside of the sick 
friend. ‘There is nothing which challenges faith like 
the inexplicable delays of Divine Love. We read with 
amazement: “ Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister 
and Lazarus. When therefore he heard that he was 
sick, he abode at that time two days in the place where 
he was.” Astounding! Why not hasten at once? It 
is, then, no evidence of a lack of interest or love if our 
petitions are not promptly granted. He very particu- 
larly loved the members of this Bethany household, yet 
He delayed two days before starting to them in the 
hour of their deep sorrow. Is it strange that they 
expostulated when finally He reached Bethany: “ Lord, 
if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.” He 
was already dead when the messenger had first reached 
Jesus, and Jesus knew it. Jesus had told His com- 
rades: “ Lazarus is dead.” ‘There is something almost 
other-worldly about the inner-urge of a great sorrow. 
The first instinctive call of the heart in the hour of 
overwhelming grief is for consolation through an un- 
derstanding companionship. One who knows the 


178 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


meaning of Comradeship with the Carpenter, who has 
heard His sympathetic voice speaking to the soul, who 
has felt the quivering of His heart’s devotion, feels 
the inner-urge. 


“To Jesus, to Jesus. The storm is breaking! 
The lightnings are shooting across the sky. 
Come, Thou Great Companion!” 


But He delayed two days. Was His friendship as deep 
as they had supposed? Could it be possible that He did 
not love them as He had seemed to love them? A hun- 
dred questions may have arisen, for still He did not 
come. ‘The last sad rites performed; still He delayed. 
He had a purpose. He was about to make to the world 
the greatest declaration ever received on the planet. It 
must be made sure to all that Lazarus was dead. Hence 
He waits that He may make a greater and better re- 
sponse to the importuning sisters than would at first 
have been possible. 

When He delays today, it is for the same reason. 
When prayers are unanswered for the moment, we need 
not interpret it as Divine indifference. We misinter- 
pret Providences. It is not easy for finite minds to 
read the Infinite Mind. God knows. He never fails to 
answer true prayer in His way, which is the best way. 
He will always do the right thing at the right time, if 
we trust Him. In our impatience and despair we are 
ever trying to force God’s hand. We cry: “ Oh, that 
Thou would’st rend the Heavens and come down;” 
You can never hurry God. When the right time came 
the Carpenter said: “ Let us go again into Judea.” The 


IN THE SHADOWS 179 


comrades protested: “ It is dangerous to gothere. Stay 
where you are safe. The Jews seek to kill Thee. A 
price is already on your head.” But there is no swerv- 
ing Him. Duty compels. His mission must be ful- 
filled. A sense of obligation is the most commanding 
thing in the world to a deep soul. Jesus felt the inner- 
urge. It outranked all other considerations. Always 
the redemptive urge was with Him. Jesus was not 
rash, He had retreated from Judea once. Strategic 
retreats have again and again won the war. The time 
had not then come for the great tragedy. Now it was 
arriving. He will go. 

“Our friend Lazarus sleepeth, and we go to awaken 
him out of sleep.”” Thus He softens the message which 
is so hard to give. He calls death a sleep. When 
Stephen was stoned we read: “ He fell on sleep.” Sleep 
is the suspension of consciousness. So is death. After 
sleep there is an awakening. So, also, after death. 
Jesus used the word “sleep” to soften the crash and 
crush of the word “death.” But He must not dis- 
semble, even to soften the effect of the message, so 
afterward He said: “‘ Lazarus is dead.” There is no 
pronouncement in life that cuts to the very depths of 
the heart like that. ‘“‘ Mother is dead.” “Father is 
dead.” ‘‘ Husband is dead.” ‘“ Wife is dead.” You 
‘remember how it bore you to earth. Then He said to 
His comrades: “I am glad I was not there.” He would 
explain why later. Give God time, and He will inter- 
pret His own ways with men. 

The Son of God must master the grave even before 
He entered it. Death had long enough dominated hu- 


180 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


manity. It must be once and for all mastered. The 
time had come to convince the world that there is a 
life that masters death. It must be demonstrated. 
When the decision became irrevocable and the disciples 
knew it, there occurred what for all time tells how 
Comradeship with the Carpenter can develop the mar- 
tyr spirit. ‘Thomas said: “ Let us beloved disciples, let 
us go with Him, that we may die with Him.” They 
would rather die with Him than to live without Him. 
Has that spirit among men died? It has not. Thou- 
sands of our Armenian brethren sacrificed life with 
Him rather than to live without Him. The days of 
martyrdom have not passed. Put to the test, millions 
today would die for Him rather than to deny Him. 

Individuality shows itself in sorrow. Martha heard 
that the Blessed Comrade was coming, and hastened 
to meet Him. Mary remained in the house, too over- 
come in her sorrow to act. We are cruelly critical. Do 
not be too critical of one who weeps. The cruelest of 
all cruel ties is to criticize people for the way they take 
their sorrows. With some, whose natures are san- 
guine and eager, quiet and meditation seem impossible. 
Their grief must find demonstration. To others, pub- 
licity is impossible. They must have it out with God 
alone. Let God lead you in your sorrow and, in 
Heaven’s name, let others have their own individual 
way of meeting their burdens. Martha met the Car- 
penter hopefully: “ Even now whatsoever thou shalt 
ask of God, God will give it thee.” “ Thy brother shall 
rise again.” “I know he will rise again in the Resur- 
rection, at the last day.” 


IN THE SHADOWS 181 


Now let the wheels of time stop rolling for the mo- 
ment. The Carpenter-Son of God is about to startle 
the world with such a message as man has never heard: 
“I am the resurrection and the life!” The deathless 
life for those united with the Lord of Glory. That is 
the supreme word of consolation. It has soothed more 
sorrows than all other words of the Carpenter of Naza- 
reth, the Christ of God. It has driven the cloud from 
the sky at the open grave for uncounted millions. It 
has made the tomb a gateway instead of a terminal. It 
has lifted the eye from the grave to the glory. It has 
set the star of hope in a sky that was black. Millions 
upon millions and still other millions have stood silent 
at the grave with tears streaming from their eyes, and 
have been able to look up, because they have heard anew 
the words coming from the battlements of glory in the 
voice of the Eternal, Ever-living and ever-sympathizing 
Christ, the Great Comrade of the sorrowing: “I am 
the resurrection and the life—he that liveth and be- 
lieveth in me shall never die.” Here is the guarantee 
of a glad immortality. It is the assurance of vastly 
more than continued existence after death. It is the 
promise of the Life Everlasting. 

Comrades of the Carpenter are comrades forever. 
Fellowship with God forever—that is Heaven. 

“Jesus wept”?! ‘The Saviour of the world in tears! 
Wonderful spectacle for men and angels! Mary had 
come, and was in tears. Grief awakens grief in sympa- 
thetic natures. Never fear a sympathetic nature. 
There is safety in tears. We misconceive the meaning 
of tears. Weeping is a manifestation of strength 


182 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


rather than of weakness. That stoical and stolid cold- 
ness which never sheds tears is not an evidence of 
strength. Such a nature has little influence. Epoch- 
making souls that have immortalized themselves in 
great achievement have been kindly and have wept. 
Tears are a revelation of the inner nature. Sorrow 
and joy find expression in tears. They are the outlet 
for strong emotions. They are a wonderful solvent. 
They dissolve away mountains of difficulty, just as the 
summer sunshine dissolves away icebergs that stand in 
the transatlantic pathway. As water is the king of 
solvents in the natural world, so tears are the king of 
solvents in the world of thought and feeling. They 
dissolve distrust and doubt. The ingathered grains of 
sand create friction on the journal and retard motion, 
so in domestic and social life the grains of pride, anger, 
indifference and unkindness generate heat through fric- 
tion and stop advance. ‘Tears are a great corrective and 
solvent of these causes of friction. Tear-drops are 
prisms. ‘They reveal the seven-hued bow of promise, 
just as the drops of rain reveal the rainbow. The 
most attractive qualities of life appear in the man with 
strong emotions, and who is not ashamed to weep. No 
one would disparage the desirability of intellectual emi- 
nence. No more should we disparage the desirability 
of emotional eminence—which means emotions under 
control but not stifled. ‘Tears are passports to the heart. 
You are rarely denied. the confidence of one who weeps. 
You can find access to the hearts of many through the 
avenue of tears, that would not otherwise be open 
to you. 


IN THE SHADOWS 183 


The fact that Jesus wept has made comradeship with | 
Him closer and sweeter than it could ever have been | 
otherwise. If He knows how to sympathize with us, 
then we can draw closely to Him and give Him our 
confidence and tell Him our griefs and our hopes. The 
massiveness of an engine does not lessen the need of a 
safety-valve, but rather increases it. The greater the 
soul, the more the need of the safety-valve of tears. 
“She is now safe,” said a physician of one whose 
overwhelming grief had found no vent for many days 
and whose mind was in danger. She was safe because 
she was weeping. When Jesus wept, His tears were 
variously interpreted. Some of the Jews sarcastically 
said: “ Could not this man who opened the eyes of the 
blind have prevented the death of this His friend?” 
What was the implication? That He had not in reality 
opened the eyes of the blind. Why not see the best and 
not the worst? Even tears can be misinterpreted. The 
misinterpretations of other people’s conduct fills the 
world with trial, trouble and sorrow. Prejudice al- 
ways misinterprets. So also does envy. There is no 
act of life that cannot be wilfully misinterpreted or 
ignorantly misunderstood. Interpretations of conduct 
furnish an index to the one who is interpreting. An 
inclination to believe and say the worst and not the 
best, indicates a shriveled soul. Make large gifts to 
some cause, and some pin-headed cynic will say it was 
done ostentatiously, for the sake of parade. Dress 
modestly, and you are a prude. Dress in the fashion, 
and you are a worldling. Refuse large gifts because 
you cannot afford them, and you are penurious. So it 


184 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


goes. Why be disturbed because of human opinions? 
But be careful not to shrink your own soul by your 
misinterpretations of other people’s conduct. Weep 
when friends have departed, and you are either weak 
or parading your sorrow for effect. Refrain from 
tears, and your coldness and indifference is a mark of 
cruelty. So through the long line of human conduct. 
It is enough to know that Jesus, with His great deep 
nature, suffered with the sorrowing. “ He bears our 
griefs and carries our sorrows.” ‘There were some at 
the grave who understood tears. They said: “ Behold, 
how he loved him!” He who hates Christ will allow 
no act of a professed Comrade of Christ to go unchal- 
lenged. Christ works now through His disciples by 
working in them. A denial of the Christian qualities 
that really obtain in other lives is to deny Christ 
Himself, 

After the tears of Jesus there was a moment of sus- 
pense. Readjustments take time. Now they are at 
the tomb. For four days the friend and Comrade of 
the Carpenter had lain in the tomb. Watch Him now. 
Get the scene clearly. Sisters of Lazarus, friends, 
neighbors, acquaintances, disciples, all are assembled, 
and all are silent. Jesus has said: “I am the resur- 
rection and the life.’”’ Can He demonstrate it? “ Take 
away the stone.” There is objection, which is only 
the more emphasizing of the impossibility of imposture. 
“He has been dead four days, and by this time his 
body is decaying.” ‘Take away the stone.” ‘There 
are obstructions to the work of Christ that must be 
humanly removed. God does not do for us what we 


IN THE SHADOWS 185 


can do for ourselves. Until we are willing to do our 
utmost, God does not and cannot do His utmost. ‘The 
stone represented hindrances to the incoming of grace. 
Until removed, power Divine remains unemployed. 
Sin is an obstruction which we must be willing shall 
be removed, before life will be declared. Insulate 
yourself, and the dynamo will have no access to you. 
Sin is a non-conductor. Unrepented of, it makes the 
application of the powers of God impossible. Sunshine 
is unavailing until it has access. Jesus stood at the 
door of the tomb and would never have spoken the 
word that raised the dead, had they not obeyed His 
command to remove the obstruction. Then He cried: 
“Tazarus! Come forth!” 

What a moment! All eternity, for earth’s myriads, 
hung on the response to that call. Had the Carpenter 
failed here, He would have had no Comrades. Not 
since the everlasting mandate had gone forth at cre- 
ation: “‘ Let there be light,” had there been so impor- 
tant an utterance as this. “ Lazarus! Come forth!” 
Will he come? | 

He awakens! He stands before them, living! It is 
done! Death is already conquered! Out of the dark- 
ness and chill of the tomb, into the brightness, the 
gladness and the glory of God’s world, the dead came. 
Out of the stillness, into the music of life, with its 
inspirations, the dead came. 

What, then, of the new birth? Cannot He that 
called the dead to life call the soul, dead while seeming 
to live, dead in trespasses and sin, to full effulgent, 
glorious life? ‘Those who are entombed in pleasure, 


186 COMRADES OF THE CARPENTER 


can He not bring them to the joys that are highest, 
through His gracious power. Ah! the life everlasting 
is no mere dream. It is the one wonderful soul- 
cheering reality; among all the realities in the world, 
the greatest. Here is the test of all religions: Can the 
dead be raised? 

Does it give life? Does the Carpenter-Christ raise 
the dead? Does He give new life to His comrades? 
Untold thousands who have trusted, and have been 
transformed from death to life, give witness to the 
power of Jesus Christ to raise from the tomb those 
dead in trespasses and sin. 

“TLoose him, and let him go.” Liberty! The glad 
experience of twice-born men. Freed from the evil 
that enswathes and enfolds, the Comrade of the Car- 
penter pursues his way unhampered and unhindered. 

He and He alone turns sorrow to joy, shadows to 
the brightness of His own Glory. The shadows dis- 
appear when we walk with the Great Comrade. 


Printed in the United States of America 


PRAYER AND DEVOTIONAL 





S. D. GORDON Author of “Quiet Talks Series’ 


Five Laws That Govern Prayer 


Five Addresses delivered at the School of For- 
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one can read this book without securing great benefit and 
having his faith strengthened.”—Presbyterian. 


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The Open Gate to Prayer 


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The Singers of Judah’s Hills 


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beauty.”’—The Baptist. 





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Daily Devotional Bible Readings 


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THE LIFE BEYOND—PROPHECY 





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Putting on Immortality 
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After Death—What Then? 


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~ Author of “Quiet Talks About Prayer,” Ete. 


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INSPIRATION from BIBLE CHARACTERS 








HENRY SCHAEFFER, PhD.; S.T.M. 


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The Call to Prophetic Service 
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EXPOSITORY AND DEVOTIONAL 





G. CAMPBELL MORGAN, D.D. 
| Searchlights from the Word 


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MODERN EVANGELISM 
CHARLES L. GOODELL, D.D, 


Executive Secretary Commission on Evangelism and 
Life Service, Federal Council of Churches 
of Christ in America 


Motives and Methods in Modern 


Evangelism 
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of the attractive features of the book. All soul-winners 
and personal workers will enjoy this volume. Its close 
study will amply repay the preacher and fan anew the 
evangelistic flames of his ministry.’’—Baptist Herald. 





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